Imagine Your Life without Fear by Max Lucado

Author:Max Lucado [Lucado, Max]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-06-22T16:59:05+00:00

Chapter 4

The Ultimate Fear

Don't let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me.

—John 14:1 nlt

Aristotle called death the thing to be feared most because "it appears to be the end of everything."4 Jean-Paul Sartre asserted that death "removes all meaning from life."5 Robert Green Ingersoll, one of America's most outspoken agnostics, could offer no words of hope at his brother's funeral. He said, "Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights."6 The pessimism of French philosopher Francois Rabelais was equally arctic. He made this sentence his final one: "I am going to the great Perhaps."7

Such sad, depressing language! If death is nothing more than "the end of everything," "barren peaks," and "the great Perhaps," what is the possibility of dying bravely? But what if the philosophers missed it? Suppose death is different than they thought, less a curse and more a passageway, not a crisis to be avoided but a corner to be turned?

This is the promise of Christ: "Don't let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. There is more than enough room in my Father's home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am" (John 14:1-3 nlt). Have you claimed his promise?

If not, maybe it's because it sounds too good to be true.

"Free flight: Rio de Janeiro to Miami, Florida."

I wasn't the only person to hear about the offer but one of the few to phone and request details. The courier service offered an airline ticket to anyone willing to carry a bag of mail to the States. The deal was tantalizingly simple:

Meet the company representative at the airport, where you'll be given a duffel bag of documents and one ticket. Check the bag when you check in for the flight. Retrieve the bag in Miami before you make your connection. Give it to the uniformed courier representative, who'll await you beyond customs.

No company makes such offers anymore. But this was 1985 — years before intense airport security. My dad was dying of ALS, airline tickets expensive, and my checking account as thin as a Paris supermodel. Free ticket? The offer sounded too good to be true.

So I walked away from it.

Many do the same with an offer found in John 3:16:

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" (niv).

Millions read the verse. Only a handful trust it. Wary of a catch perhaps? Not needy enough maybe? Cautioned by guarded friends?

I was. Other Rio residents saw the same offer. Some read it and smelled a rat.

"Don't risk it," one warned me. "Better to buy your own ticket."

But I couldn't afford one. Each call to Mom brought worse news.

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