{"id":21191,"date":"2022-03-30T10:10:11","date_gmt":"2022-03-30T14:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=21191"},"modified":"2022-03-30T10:22:43","modified_gmt":"2022-03-30T14:22:43","slug":"21191","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=21191","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/vqcuJ8YbAis\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Being Tender with Our Fear<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Cole Arthur Riley is a writer and creator of the online prayer space Black Liturgies. She views fear as a place to discover God\u2019s compassion for us: &nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m told the most frequent command from God in the Bible is\u00a0<em>Do not fear<\/em>.\u00a0Some have interpreted this as an indictment on those who are afraid, as if to say fear signifies a less robust faith. This offends me. God is not criticizing us for being afraid in a world haunted by so many terrors and traumas. I hear\u00a0<em>Don\u2019t be afraid<\/em>\u00a0and hope that it is <strong>not a command not to fear but rather the nurturing voice of a God drawing near to our tremblin<\/strong>g. I hear those words and imagine God in all tenderness cradling her creation against her breast.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Perhaps it is <strong>not the indictment of God we are sensing but our own souls turned against themselves<\/strong>. I wouldn\u2019t dare criticize Christ in the garden\u2014sweating, crying, pleading for God to let the cup pass from him [Luke 22:41\u201344]. This is a Christ who knew fear deeply. And if God himself has been afraid, I have to believe he is tender with our own fear.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Riley describes God leading us in our fear to the deep rest that the psalmist envisions: &nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Whenever my friend\u2019s ma was fed up, she used to mumble,&nbsp;<em>I might be limpin through the valley of the shadow of death&nbsp;<\/em>. . .&nbsp;What I skipped over in the psalm she was referencing time and time again is the sacred praxis it begins with. The psalmist says, \u201cHe makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters\u201d [Psalm 23:2]. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I find it beautiful that in the face of terror, God doesn\u2019t bid us toward courage as we might perceive it. <strong>Instead, he draws us toward fear\u2019s essential sister, rest\u2014a sister who is not meant to replace fear but to exist together in tension and harmony with it.<\/strong> For fear\u2019s origin is not evil, though evil certainly wields it against our souls daily.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My father . . . pulls my ear into him and mumbles,<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><em><strong>Let the fear in, just don\u2019t let it run you<\/strong><\/em><strong>.<\/strong>\u00a0Just as it can be the threatening hand that holds you in bondage, it can also protect you when the journey toward liberation requires perceptive choice and a certain instinct in the face of the unknown. No one would deny it is a good thing that we are terrified to jump from building to building. Fear steadies our impulses and warns us of danger. <strong>You might consider it more akin to a watchman than an enemy. . .<\/strong> .\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I believe fear has the holy potential to draw out awe in us. To <strong>lead us into deeper patterns of protection and trust. To mold us into people engaged in the unknown, capable of making mystery of it instead of terror.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/image-12-500x375.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-21192\" srcset=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/image-12-500x375.png 500w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/image-12-300x225.png 300w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/image-12-768x576.png 768w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/image-12.png 1750w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Being Tender with Our Fear Cole Arthur Riley is a writer and creator of the online prayer space Black Liturgies. She views fear as a place to discover God\u2019s compassion for us: &nbsp; I\u2019m told the most frequent command from God in the Bible is\u00a0Do not fear.\u00a0Some have interpreted this as an indictment on those [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21191"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21191"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21196,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21191\/revisions\/21196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}