Fear less; love more

About two decades ago, cancer attacked a couple of my buddies. They lived in two Southern cities, where our family lived—in one community, and then the other. The first got sick several months before we moved away from our neighborhod; the other got sick several months after we arrived in his  city. We all were in our mid-30s at the time. They died about a year or 18 months apart, leaving strong-and-lovely wives, sweet children and hosts of friends.

I knew both of my friends fairly well before they got sick, and their illnesses drove us closer. You get to know someone when you hold his head while he vomits. You really get to know a guy when you talk in the middle of the night in a dark hospital room.

2 friends, 2 deaths

Talking—first about their illnesses and, later, about their impending deaths—distinguished my friends. 

The first young man wouldn't talk about his illness and, to my knowledge, never discussed his death. He denied their existence. He denied his wife, other family and friends the opportunity to express their love and admiration. He denied himself the opportunity to close his life with intention and defined purpose.

The second friend openly discussed his condition, right from the start. In the early months, he talked about prognosis and procedures. Later, he comfortably and comfortingly talked about anticipating death—how he regretted not getting to see his children grow up, how he felt guilty about leaving his wife with so much hard, and lonely, parenting tasks. Ultimately, he articulated his anticipation of the next life.

My first friend died horribly. Denying to the end, his body spasmed violently, and he exited this life in a cold hospital room, surrounded by masked medical staff working frantically to delay the inevitable. 

My second friend died beautifully.  Open and accepting, he rested in his own home, surrounded by his wife and close friends who grieved their loss but rejoiced that this loved one was entering the presence of the Lord.

I've pondered these friends and their deaths many times through the years. The difference, I think, is how they accepted—or, more precisely, how they trusted—God's love. First John 4:18 says, "There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear … ." My second friend believed God's love is stronger than the disease that was stronger than his body. God's love, perfected in the sweet spirit of this faithful man, cast the fear from him. My first friend had accepted Jesus as his Savior, but he never leaned into divine love, and so fear overwhelmed him throughout his final months and into his last moment.

Lessons for today

These friends—and the lessons their deaths taught me—keep coming to mind as I read and hear Christians overwrought by fear. Whether it's a Muslim onslaught, financial peril, government failure or societal ruin, they're scared. That's what they talk about. That's what seems to dominate their thinking.

One illustration: Regularly, I read or hear from Baptists who know their church history. In their calmer moments, they remember our Baptist foreparents championed religious liberty for all people. But they're so afraid of Muslims that they speak about them in ways that surely cause our Baptist champions—Thomas Helwys, Roger Williams, John Leland, George W. Truett—to spin in their graves.

The reason springs from the closing lines of the Apostle John's first epistle. Because of a breakdown of love, they are consumed by fear.

Double failure

The love failure runs in two directions.

Like my first friend, they fail to lean into or to trust God's abiding love. If they truly accepted and believed in God's love, they would know God's grace and presence and peace will be sufficient for God's people, no matter what course history may take. Instead, they have been consumed by fear of what might happen at some point in some future when Muslims become a majority—in Oklahoma, or wherever they live.

But also, they fail to love Muslims. Of course, this may seem hard. But God created all people in God's own image. Hard as it is for them to imagine, God loves Muslims just as much as God loves Baptists, and God loves Iranians as much as God loves Americans. If we're going to follow Christ in this world, that means loving all people, even—or especially—those we believe to be our enemies. 

Imagine a miracle

And if you believe in miracles, then ponder this: If Christians loved perfectly, then that perfect love would drive out the fear in others, such as the Muslims so many Christians fear. Absent of fear and in the presence of perfect love, this world would be a much safer, happier and freer place.