whom shall i fear?

Ilona Clayton

Claire knew she was late for her friend’s party, but she couldn’t decide what to wear. The dress she had on was clingier than she had expected. Everyone will see that I’ve put on weight. Her hand hovered over a flowy skirt. But what if they think I look frumpy? She considered a pair of leather trousers instead. They’ll think I’m trying too hard. Plus, I wore these the last time we took pictures and we’ll definitely take more tonight. She sighed and frowned at the mirror, close to tears. It shouldn’t be this difficult.

Without realising it, Claire has become enslaved by the opinions of others. She fears what others will think of her. While this is a trivial example, the ‘fear of man’ is far from uncommon, as Edward Welch lays out in his book, When people are big and God is small. Other examples of ‘fear of man’ he cites are: being over-committed, experiencing jealousy, telling lies, seeking affirmation from others. 1 Who can claim that they haven’t at one point or another experienced at least one, and most likely all, of those things?

Yet we don’t have to be afraid of others – our rescuer came two thousand years ago. In Luke 4, Jesus goes to the synagogue and reads out his manifesto from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”2 While his contemporaries assumed he would do so in a very specific context, by acquiring their independence from Rome, God’s plan for Jesus’s rescue mission was far bigger. Sometimes it’s easy to think that Jesus “only” saved us from hell by dying for us. But his death impacts our lives and how we live our lives now too. Despite our continuous struggle, we have been saved and we have been freed. From death, but also from the dependence on idols - regardless of whether they are objects, or dreams, or people. Jack Miller said ‘the devil’s great strategy is to get us problem centred rather than Christ centred’; this applies to being people centred too. Even if it doesn’t feel like it at times, we’ve been given what we need to escape the pressure of having to conform to unrealistic expectations or others’ opinions. Christians are called to live only for an audience of one and thankfully our audience is the One who not only desires purely what’s best for us, but also embodies love, grace, and forgiveness.

Tim Keller’s short booklet, The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness, explains that the solution to fearing what other people think isn’t to set our own standards but rather to find our identity and purpose in Jesus. Keller argues that because Jesus, being the beloved Son of God, brought his followers into God’s family

through his death and resurrection, Christians too are beloved children of God. This in turn means that our lives can be lived free of fear that we need to earn our place or reputation or identity, because our identity has already been fixed.3 Therefore, whenever we feel tempted to make ourselves look better than we are or to base our worth on our work, we can instead choose to be free by focusing on who really matters. Welch calls his readers to fix their eyes on their saviour instead of other people or even themselves: ‘for every one look at myself I must take ten looks at Jesus.’4

King David of Israel wrote the following in Psalm 27:

‘The Lord is my light and my salvation –Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life –Of whom shall I be afraid?’5

When we remember that our creator, protector and redeemer walks beside us every step of the way, we can set aside our fear of others and live rejoicing in the freedom he has given us.

Claire’s eyes fell on the Bible verse taped to her wall. She smiled, picked up the jeans she had wanted to wear anyway, and got ready knowing that it didn’t matter what her friends thought, because her best friend loved her regardless

Ilona is now a Ministry Assistant at St Ebbe’s after reading History and German at Somerville. When she’s not running around church, you can find her in bed with a good book or dancing around her room.