Do your fears ever overtake you - paralyzing you, either momentarily or long-term, to the point where you sit out on life?

Fear is a strong force that God may use to protect and guide us but it’s also a tool the enemy will use to keep us in stalemate preventing us from experiencing and trusting God.

A few weeks ago our daughter had her end-of-the-season soccer party at a new gym in our area. It’s in an old warehouse and high above our party was the ropes course with six platforms and in-between each is a variety of ropes and obstacles.

It looked awesome and the girls immediately asked about it.The manager offered us a deal if each child had an adult to accompany them. We couldn’t pass it up so we did the mini-training, strapped in and waited our turn to climb the rope ladder.

I was with my son, Noah, who quickly climbed the ladder as I belayed him. He made it look easy and I was eager to join him at top. However, as I began my climb the narrow ladder, it began to twist and sway. I quickly realized it was going to be trickier than it appeared.

I felt uncoordinated as I climbed. When it came time for me to reach from the ladder and step onto the platform, a fear of heights took over me that I had never experienced before. I stood on the platform, grasping the pole and afraid to move. I wanted to go down - immediately.

I didn’t want to let Noah down so I tried to gather my nerves. He waited for me to clip him in to his first course while I mentally tried to think of a way to get out of it and without disappointing him. Maybe he’ll hate it and “need” me to go down with him.

No such luck – he loved it.

It was my turn to lean out, grab the rope and step off the firm platform onto a swinging rope. It was unnerving and I hated it at first but I didn’t fall and even ended the day with an adrenaline high.

Here are a few life lessons it taught me. 

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Fear abounds; on blogs, television, schools, nations, churches. Fear seeps in and makes us cling to the comfort of what we know which leads to a false sense of security. Fear denies, pushes away and closes off. Fear makes us forget that sacrifice is necessary for life.

Perfection, for me, was the mask hiding my fear.  I only handled matters I knew something about and pretended to know about issues I did not understand. But something shifted as I learned to take the mask off.  I didn't need to know all of the answers any more.  A change occurred in my soul as I became teachable from other people's experiences and stories. Together we could make a way through the fuzziness to be seen and so much of life is about just being visible to one another.

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Think of the word “artist” and several images come to mind.  A goateed man with a beret and a paint brush.  A red-mouthed diva in a glittering gown.  An aging rock star with a rider that includes green M&M’s and Evian bottled water.  The word implies a lot of things.  Talent, excellence, and a level of achievement reserved for people with record contracts or whose work hangs in museums.  But also weirdness, eccentricity, capriciousness, and ego.

The word “artist” seems to be an intimidating word for many, and I find a lot of people reluctant to apply it to themselves.  In short, the word carries a lot of baggage.

I’ve been speaking to a number of people lately who are trying on the word, “artist.”  In various venues, I’ve been talking to people who are exploring what it is to be made in the image of God, the Master Artist who painted the stars, sculpted the planets, formed our beings.  And if it is true that we were made to be creative—to build and explore and express and make art—how does that affect the way we see ourselves?  Can we use the word “artist” to describe the human condition?  Can you use the word to describe you?

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Last week our family went camping up in the mountains - our last hoorah of summer. The drive was gorgeous. A few hours into our trip, we passed a sign informing us we were 16 miles from our destination. Twenty minutes and we’d be there.

As I looked around at the mountains I noticed an odd plane flying low in the foothills. We’ve had a dry summer in Idaho with many grass and forest fires. I wondered if there was a small fire in the area they were trying to put out.

The road wrapped around a curve and we saw it. A huge cloud of smoke was pouring out the side of the mountain (actual photo from iPhone above). It looked like the beginnings of a forest fire. The crews were arriving, assessing the situation and awaiting their orders. It was an eery feeling as we drove closer and closer. My first instinct was to turn around and head back towards Boise.

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Hunter S. Thompson wrote a series of articles in 1971 in Rolling Stone that eventually were turned into the book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream. One of the more memorable quotes, in my opinion, is as follows:

Hallucinations are bad enough. But after a while you learn to cope with things like seeing your dead grandmother crawling up your leg with a knife in her teeth. Most acid fanciers can handle this sort of thing. But nobody can handle that other trip—the possibility that any freak with $1.98 can walk into Circus-Circus and suddenly appear in the sky over downtown Las Vegas twelve times the size of God, howling anything that comes into his head. No, this is not a good town for psychedelic drugs. Reality itself is too twisted.

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What are the questions you most fear being asked about your faith? Even as a trained apologist there are many tough questions I hope don’t come up in my discussions with non-believers. Some questions are simply difficult to answer. But we can’t ignore the tough questions. Such an approach is cowardly and counterproductive for the kingdom of God. We must—yes, must—be prepared with an answer for the toughest questions (1 Peter 3:15). We have nothing to fear because the truth is on our side.

I recently had the opportunity to endorse Mark Mittelberg’s upcoming book entitled, “The Questions Christians Hope No One Will Ask (With Answers).” This book is based upon a survey Mark sponsored with Tyndale Publishers through the Barna Group of one thousand self-proclaimed Christians. They asked each person what faith questions they would feel most uncomfortable being asked by a co-worker or friend. Some questions are expected but a few might come as a surprise.

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We all know being dishonest with others is wrong and unacceptable: enough said. But there’s a kind of dishonesty we usually don’t talk about: being dishonest with ourselves. It happens when we’re unwilling to admit our personal faults and weaknesses. We convince ourselves that we can overcome our greatest weaknesses on our own. We go on without accountability. Eventually, either by force or surrender, though, we have to come to terms with who we really are.

If worry is like a dancing bear, then dishonesty is like a monkey with clanging cymbals. I’m a drummer—while we’re being honest, I prefer to be called a percussionist; if you’re a musician, you will get the joke, if not, I’ll just say I do more than bang on trash cans—so I love the toy monkeys with clanging cymbals. And I love the videos of monkeys trying to play with percussion instruments. (That stuff is make your ribs-hurt funny.) But when the monkey with clanging cymbals comes on the scene, we have a hard time hearing anything else. While that monkey is telling us lies about good music, like a garage-band drummer, we can’t hear the real melody. We can’t tune for the life of us. Eventually, we end up playing punk rock and having black hair, and calling ourselves an artist. (I did that, for the record.)

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If you're climbing a rock face, the thing that spares you from death in the event of a fall is your protection (which is some sort of anchor you put in the rock that will put an end to your falling).  Of course, the higher you climb beyond your last piece of protection, the farther you'll fall if you fail.  This can have the effect of unnerving the climber, which ultimately negates the climber's skills, causing him/her to freeze with fear and eventually fall.

It's terrible irony that the very thing they fear, ends up happening, precisely because they're afraid of it happening.  "Fear" it turns out, is one of the worst enemies, just as Roosevelt, and Joshua, and the angel all said.  It has the power to strip us of our capacities, freezing out the kind of risk necessary someone's going to embody the generous, just, wall breaking, bridge building, life restoring character of Jesus.  Live too carefully, and you'll end up looking religious instead of righteous - painfully boring, and ridden with anxiety.

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For your first week of reading, Why Trust Jesus? Here's several questions that I want you to ask yourself but also ask your friends in your community group/ book study group.  After you have read Norman Geisler's foreword and my introduction, consider these questions.  

1. What characteristics do you look for in someone else, before you can trust them?

2. What are the greatest barriers to trusting Christ daily in your own life? Is it intellectual, emotional, or self-sufficiency? Talk it out. 

 3. We have all probably been let down by Christians. Maybe a pastor or priest,  a father or mother, an ex-lover. In the midst of  disappointments or failures, why do you believe the Christian faith is most trustworthy? Or more specifically, why Jesus? 

4. What steps will you take this week to grow in trust?

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We may love the monkeys at the circus, but the dancing bear is what everyone wants to see. Admit it, a beast doing things it should not be capable of is enthralling. When I let worry run the show, everything else becomes a side act. Worry becomes the dancing bear.

Worry controls us, confines us, and consumes us. It can stop us in our tracks. Worry is not a friend. It is an enemy of free thinkers and entrepreneurs. It can even take down those gifted by God. It can destroy anyone who wishes to live freely. From the very beginning of the church we see worry putting a stop to God’s work.

Why does Peter deny Jesus? Worry and (no doubt) fear. Like the trainer—who is likely scared out of his mind when trying to keep the dancing bear at bay—fear is a bi-product.