"Conquer" Your Fears

There is no fear in love;

but perfect love casteth out fear:

because fear hath torment.

He that feareth is not made perfect in love.

~ 1 John 4:18

This morning on the radio Dennis Prager's great key to happiness was to conquer your fears.

His is a common concept, advised, I believe, by psychologists and put forward by movies. For example, I thought of my recent exposure to Batman, via the latest movie, Batman Begins. In this story, the hero is advised to "breathe in his fears", to identify the thing which frightens him most and to embrace it. If you are afraid of the dark, surround yourself with darkness until you are no longer afraid. Since Bruce Wayne's fear was of bats, he was to stand upright while they swarmed about him.

My problem with this is that I believe the treatment is backwards. Rather than "conquering your fears," you should recognize He who is greater than all of them. Perfect love, not perfect strength, casts out fear. Perhaps Princess Diaries defined courage more properly: "Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the judgment that something is more important than fear." Therefore, my approach to the subject of fear is first, to remember the portrait of God in Matthew 6. Second, I have decided to never do anything whose only motivation is fear. Never refuse to do anything because I am afraid.

Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field,

which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven,

shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?

~ Matthew 6:30

To God be all glory.