Only Fear

On Saturday, March 4, 1933 Franklin D. Roosevelt stepped up to a microphone to give his first inaugural address as president of the United States. Roosevelt and the country he addressed were facing the deepest and most brutal days of the Great Depression. The bright optimism of the Roaring Twenties had surrender to the hopeless despondency of the 1930’s.  So many had lost so much. Poverty was a prevailing force. Millions went to bed hungry at night. Parents watched helplessly as the life they had built for their family eroded away.

In the introduction to FDR’s first address to the people of this beleaguered nation he spoke these now familiar words:

So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

The president eloquently reminded his people that the true enemy was not the economic upheaval of the depression, but incapacitating plague of fear. He reminded them that the greatest difficulties they faced were “only material things.” The speech challenged the citizens to face their fears and remove the shackles of anxiety that held them captive.

Roosevelt’s words remain compelling and poignant today. Victory is available to each of us. Fear is just an emotion. It can obstruct our vision of reality. It can strangle us as we try to breathe. It can trample our hearts. It can paralyze us with inactivity. It can steal our faith. But it is, nonetheless, just an emotion. 

There is something incredibly powerful about facing your greatest fear, . . looking straight into the face of the terror, the pain and saying “You do not own me!”  “I am not defined by you!” Hope becomes something much greater than just life and its circumstances. Facing your fear, your greatest loss, and yet finding life brings eternity to the present. The sense of strength is amazing. The ability to be selfless becomes unbound by the chains of risk that keep us from experiencing life. Courage seems to become a reality.

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 1 John 4.18