Fear is physical. I’m not talking about intellectual fear. I’m not talking about when we say, “I’m afraid we may have tacos for lunch again today.” Real fear isn’t seated in our minds at all, but in our bodies. I’m told that real fear causes most people to reflexively release adrenaline into the body. And that adrenaline causes the muscles to tense, the heart to beat faster, and breathing to become shallow quick. These physical responses to fear have been designed to prepare our bodies to do one of two things: fight or run away. Fear presents us with just those two options, for the most part: fight or flight.

Of course, fear and our physical responses to fear serve a vital role in our survival. When faced with mortal danger, fighting or running away may be the only options that will keep us alive. Fear and its effects on our bodies are conditioned responses that have emerged over centuries of facing mortal dangers from nature and from each other.

The problem is that many times we experience fear these days, it’s not in the face of mortal danger. If we allow ourselves to retreat into fear too quickly, then all we’ll be left with are the options that fear permits us: to fight or to run away. But in many instances, there may be a third option that’s much more productive and meaningful. If we retreat into fear too quickly, we limit ourselves to “fight or flight,” when it may be that patience, or courage, or openness to learning may be much more appropriate tacks to take.

The Bible contains dozens of stories when God needs to get across the message to people that they should “be not afraid.” It seems that in Bible times, like today, people retreated into fear too quickly. And sometimes God needed them to consider another option that fear would eliminate. Sometimes God needed people to set aside their impulse to fight or to run away, in order to choose a third way of responding to a situation into which God was leading them.

· Abraham in a vision

· Hagar, homeless and hungry with a child

· Isaac in a dream

· Jacob in a voice in the night

· Moses on the eve of a battle

· Joshua in the face of an enemy army

· Elijah, facing an angry king

· Jeremiah as a boy charged with teaching about God

· Zechariah, upon learning that his elderly, barren wife was pregnant

· Joseph, upon hearing that his fiance was pregnant

· Mary, upon learning that she was pregnant

· The shepherds, facing a multitude of angels

· Disciples in a boat, seeing Jesus walking on the water

When you’re feeling like life is overwhelming, like you’d just like to run away - stop, take a moment, and consider if what you’re feeling is fear. Running away is one of the two options that fear limits us to, so when we're feeling the impulse to run, it’s important to discern if we’re reacting to fear. And sometimes fear is too limiting. Sometimes God is calling us to take a third path, not running away, not fighting. The same goes for those moments when we’re feeling defensive, we’re feeling our guard go up and our fists poised for a fight. When you’re feeling the impulse to fight, consider if what you’re really feeling is fear. And then consider if God is calling you to choose a different option outside of the limitations of fear. Not fighting, not running away, but another option that serves God’s purposes and helps us grow as people of faith.

“Defending Your Life,” is a wonderful movie that proposes that at the end of our lives, we’ll be judged. But the movie suggests that we won’t be judged based upon how much money we gave to good causes. We won’t be judged based upon how many hours we committed to attending church meetings. In the end, so the movie suggests, we’ll be judged by how many times we faced fear, and then choose a different way of responding. Rather than fighting or running away, we’ll be judged as having learned the lessons of life when we overcome our fears and instead act with generosity or compassion or bravery or patience. In the end, our lives will simply be a series of scenes where we felt fear swelling up inside, but rather than be limited by that fear, we choose instead to “be not afraid.” We chose, instead, another option that brought us closer to will of God.

In our homes, where we work, where we go to school, we’re likely to encounter many moments when we feel our hearts racing, our muscles tensing, and our breathing becoming shallow. In the course of living, we face many experiences that present us with a dose of fear, not necessarily mortal fear, not real fear for our lives, yet we experience the fear physically, nonetheless. In those moments, we’ll likely recognize only two options: run away or fight. But God is calling us to consider a third option. God is calling us to set aside our fear in order for God to do something more amazing. Don’t allow fear to turn you around and run backward. Be not afraid, in order that you don’t lose the opportunity for many more blessings and many more opportunities to grow closer to God farther down the path.