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Conversations with death. By Sylvia Clemens
Every era has its challenges, its efforts, worries, problems and crises that drastically change everything that has gone before. Yes, even now, here and now, we are struggling. Some of us ask ourselves anxiously how much we can endure. Fear begins to spread. We all know the paralyzing feeling of powerlessness that prevents us from acting. It drives us into alarming spirals of worry and ultimately makes everything much, much worse than it is.
The following re-told (and made-up) story by an unknown author sums up the consequences of this feeling:
"A highly respected scientist arrives in a town. On the outskirts of the town he meets Death. As he walks on, he tells him that he is going to get 100 people today. Quickly, without much discussion, the scientist hurries ahead to inform the inhabitants. He goes to great lengths, but when he leaves the town in the evening, he is stunned to discover that 5,000 people have died. He stands indignantly in front of Death, who also wants to leave the town, and confronts him. Death smirks and says with a mocking bow that he had a great assistant. He alone could only have managed the 100."
Paralyzing fear can render us incapable of acting, it makes us revolve around ourselves, search for possible ways out, makes us ill and deliberately leads us away from our heavenly Father. When we are full of sorrow, worries and fears, we do not trust our Lord that he holds this world in his hands and has only the very best intentions for his creatures. The effects of our anxious state of mind can be very far-reaching; through it, evil can creep right into our thoughts and turn our minds away from God. Our faith is attacked and even destroyed. At the same time, our trust in flesh and human ability, especially our own, gains the upper hand. Thus, all our fear is evil because we do not want to live by faith.
What use are all these insights to us in our anxious state of mind?
If we want to have inner peace and use our strength to cope with our everyday lives in such a way that we can do so full of joy and hope, then we need to radically rethink our image of God. To focus our thoughts and aspirations exclusively on the Creator and Redeemer God, to worship him, to study his word, to meet him in reverence (not in disease-causing fear!) and to live in loving obedience like his Son in everyday life. Such a spiritual lifestyle puts God, not man, on the throne and prevents self-pity from arising in the first place. But this is exactly what we can never do without divine assistance. Instead of relying on ourselves and fearfully using up all our strength in a downward spiral, expanding our relationship with our Lord and Savior would be the most sensible and safest way out of the paralyzing, disease-causing fear.
Let's let go of the fears that have been stirred up (by others, but also by ourselves)! Let's let go of the fear of getting the virus and experiencing serious damage to ourselves or our loved ones. Let's let go of the fear of the measures that will change our everyday lives and make us complain at a very high level. Yes, every illness is a turning point and yes, it hurts and we are often helpless. But this focus on possible problems or denial of them on the other side robs us of our life forces. Let us concentrate on our Lord, on our relationship with him, on a biblical image of God. Let us occupy ourselves with his word and his living image - the Lord Jesus. So we can say with Romans 8:28-39:
"For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other creature, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Who will be the winner?
Source: hoffnung-weltweit.info
