Quotes about Fear

Doubt can certainly leave us empty and frightened, but that is precisely the benefit of doubt: it exposes the folly that strong faith means you need to "know what you believe," that the more faith you "have," the more certain you are.

Doubting God is painful and frightening because we think we are leaving God behind, when in fact we are only leaving behind ideas about God that we are used to surrounding ourselves with—the small God, the God within our control, the God who moves in our circles, the God who agrees with us.

Sweating bullets to line up the Bible with our exhausting expectations, to make the Bible something it's not meant to be, isn't a pious act of faith, even if it looks that way on the surface. It's actually thinly masked fear of losing control and certainty, a mirror of an inner disquiet, a warning signal that deep down we do not really trust God at all. A

The big lesson I learned from wrestling with my own curveballs is how deeply my faith in God had been cemented in fear—which is to say, how I viewed God as very much antagonistic toward me. And so any thought on my part of listening to my experiences and interrogating my inherited faith—to inspect its boundaries let alone climb over its walls—was seen as a crisis that had to be averted or at least resolved immediately.

The root of the conflict for many Christians is not scientific or even theological, but group identity and fear of losing what it offers.

“I heard Your voice in the garden,” he replied, “and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.”

Behold, this day You have driven me from the face of the earth, and from Your face I will be hidden; I will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.”

The fear and dread of you will fall on every living creature on the earth, every bird of the air, every creature that crawls on the ground, and all the fish of the sea. They are delivered into your hand.

As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “Look, I know that you are a beautiful woman,

and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me but will let you live.

As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and suddenly great terror and darkness overwhelmed him.

But Sarah was afraid, so she denied it and said, “I did not laugh.” “No,” replied the LORD, “but you did laugh.”