Para os medrosos. Sobre o medo e a fé!

"Tenho medo de ser feliz, porque toda a vez que consigo ficar feliz, algo ruim acontece" - Charlie Brown, dos Peanuts

Quer tenhamos nós a postura do Charlie Brown e paralisamos ou até chegamos a dar o passo adiante, (acho que) é importante reflectir nos nossos medos.
Porquê que temos medo do que tememos?
Pode parecer algo muito parvo, mas é verdade!

Li este artigo do Desiring God, e foi uma grande forma de me abrir os olhos.

As crises de fé são assuntos que me são familiares.
Primeiro porque já passei por algumas e porque já acompanhei pessoas que passaram por elas.

Na opinião de Jon Bloom, uma crise de fé acontece quando:
"Crises of faith occur where the rubber of our faith — what we believe should be our experience if we trust God — meets the road of an experience that contradicts (or appears to contradict) our belief. Often this happens when some evil befalls us, leaving us disoriented and confused, feeling angry and disillusioned with God, who doesn’t appear to be following through on his promises."

Portanto, uma crise acontece quando temos uma visão distorcida do Deus em que acreditamos.
Deus realmente promete livrar-nos do mal, mas como?
"God does promise to ultimately deliver us from all evil and from the most fearful things, the things that pose the most real danger to our souls. But he does not promise that no evil will ever befall us in this age, nor does he promise to deliver us from what personally strikes the most fear into us."
"All of us have disordered fears, and they pose more trouble and heartache for us than we can often comprehend. We tend to have too little fear for the things most dangerous to our souls, and too much fear over things far less dangerous."

Isso significa que ter medo é mau ou é alguma forma de desequilíbrio ou falta de fé? Não!
"This is not to make light of the horror that evil can afflict on us, things we rightly fear and rightly pray to be spared from. The Bible records essentially all of them, and some of the Bible’s greatest saints experienced the greatest possible afflictions."

Significa que ter medo é normal!
O foco está no que é o nosso medo. O que tememos é o que realmente importa!

Mais adiante, Jon, refere que que Deus é o nosso refúgio. Essa é uma promessa que vemos repetidas várias vezes. Que Deus é o nosso refúgio, que Deus nos livra de todos os males e que Ele poupará a nossa vida e não permitirá que o mal se acerque da nossa "tenda"...
O que me faz pensar nos males graves que acontecem por aqui e por aí...

E Jon diz:
"The question is: If God does not spare us from these sorts of fearful evils, then what sort of a refuge is he? In what way does he deliver us from evil? And how is it that we can actually mean it when we say, “We will not fear”?"

Esta resposta fez-me pensar bastante. Não só pensar mas me aquietar:
"Jesus asked the question to get the disciples to examine where their faith was placed. To drive this home, Luke’s account has Jesus asking them, “Where is your faith?” (Luke 8:25).
Jesus asks all of us this question because he designed fear to be a faith-revealer. Fear is a gauge that tells us what we treasure (what we fear to lose and why), as well as what we believe is dangerous. Fears teach us about our own worldview."

E termino com estes trechos:
"The greatest deliverance Jesus accomplishes for us is saving us from our greatest danger: God’s holy and just wrath against our sin (Romans 5:6–9). "
(...)
"We cannot trust fears that are not informed by reality, which means many of our fears are not trustworthy.
Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil and to deliver us from evil (1 John 3:8; Matthew 6:13). And he came to deliver us from all our fears (Psalm 34:4), meaning all that truly endangers our souls."
(...)

A esperança do crente:
"He will not allow anything to destroy our eternal life or steal our ultimate joy, even if we suffer every kind of evil in this life. He will rescue us from every evil deed and bring us safely into his heavenly kingdom (2 Timothy 4:18)."