We all have a fear of the unknown, what one does with that fear will make all the difference in the world.
Lillian Russell
The fear of the unknown is a frequent fear that people deal with. The phone rings and a family member says, “I need to talk to you about something very important. Can you meet me next week to discuss it?” You try to get a bit of information out of the caller, but the person is determined to see you face-to-face. Now you have a week to wait for the “unknown” conversation to happen. Is this relative angry about something? Is there a problem in the family you don’t know about? Is someone going to try to borrow money from you?
What you do with the fear will determine the quality of the week in front of you. You can trade the fear for trust in God, or you can keep reasoning, revolving your mind around and around an imaginary problem until you become anxious and lose a few nights of sleep.
Fear always shows up in a negative way, but faith is always positive.
Have you ever noticed that when things like that happen, we rarely imagine all kinds of wonderful things? Why not think, I wonder if my relative is going to give me that extra car? Or, I wonder if my loved one is going to make me a wealthy heir? Fear always shows up in a negative way, but faith is always positive. In a situation like the one above, we can refuse the fear and replace it with faith in God. We can believe that whatever the news is going to be, we will have the grace to handle the situation at the time. God does not promise us a trouble-free life, but He does promise to be with us at all times and to give us the strength and wisdom we need for coping with any trouble that comes our way.
There is probably more in life that we don’t know than that we do, if you really stop to think about it. We don’t know when or exactly how we will die. We don’t know what the world economy will be like five years from now, or what the stock market will do next week. We don’t know what kinds of choices our children will make. We don’t know what might be going on inside of our bodies that we are not aware of. We don’t know if we will get the promotion at work we so desperately want, and on and on the story goes.
There is so much that we don’t know, but we can learn not to be anxious and worried about it. Worry is mentally prying into things that only God has answers for. If we knew everything God knew, we would not need to trust Him, and since our entire relationship with Him is based on faith, it is doubtful we will ever be without some unanswered questions. We will have to get comfortable with the unknown if we ever want to enjoy peace.
Although we all say we would like to know everything, I doubt seriously that we would. First, we would all find out some disturbing things that we would wish afterward we never discovered. Second, the mystery of life is what keeps it interesting. It would be very boring indeed if there were no surprises awaiting us in life.
We might say that life is a mystery unfolding. As teenagers we look into the future and often we see nothing. Everyone wants to know what we want to do when we grow up, and we literally have no idea. We have to walk it out and find out for ourselves. I still marvel at the various things I did in life before I finally got to the specific thing my life was intended to be about.
I was an abused child and teenager, an office clerk, a bookkeeper, a waitress, married at 19, abandoned in New Mexico and California, and ultimately divorced at 23, a single mother of one son. I was an office manager, a credit manager, married again at age 23 (I didn’t wait long to try again), I had 2 more children, was a stay-at-home mom, then more jobs, mostly office work, and suddenly to my great surprise, called by God to be a minister and Bible teacher. Wow! Surprise! Where did that come from?
Nothing else I had done in life was even remotely anything like what I was about to do, although I did learn something in each phase that helped with the next one. But, to my great surprise, here I am today with an international television show broadcast in 70-plus languages, the author of 100-plus books, the mother of four children, and a wife of 48 years. If I had known what God had in mind, I am fairly certain I would have messed it up, or definitely tried to do it earlier than I should have.
As you can see from my story, surprises in life can be wonderful, but we often fail to realize it in time to enjoy life while we are waiting for them. I am a great advocate of enjoying every phase of life. I wish I had done so myself, but since I cannot go back and do my life over, at least I can encourage others not to waste the seasons and phases of their lives. We are all headed somewhere all of the time, so let’s look forward to the future with happy anticipation instead of tormenting fear.
We are all headed somewhere all of the time, so let’s look forward to the future with happy anticipation instead of tormenting fear.
God is actually very fond of mystery. We can start with the mystery of our birth. The Bible says that we were formed “in secret” and in the region of “mystery” (our mom’s womb) (see Psalm 139:15). Job said the dealings of God with the ungodly is a mystery (see Job 21:16). I am sure we can all say an “amen” to that. We wonder why the ungodly seem to prosper in the midst of their wicked ways, why they live so long, especially when a godly person we know dies young. We cannot figure out God simply because we wouldn’t do things the way He does them.
In Mark 4:11, the kingdom of God is said to be a mystery. In Romans 16:25, as well as in several other verses, we are told that the entire plan of redemption is a mystery. Paul asked many times in prayer that he might be able to boldly proclaim the mystery of the Gospel that had been entrusted to him. After all, who could reasonably understand God sending His precious Son to die for sinners, and for that matter, why did He wait as long as He did to do it? We must grasp it with the heart, for the mind of man cannot understand the ways of God. God’s plan and will is called a mystery (see Ephesians 1:9). The mystery of the ages is Christ in us, the hope of glory (see Colossians 1:27). Even lawlessness is referred to as a mystery (see 2 Thessalonians 2:7). Then there is the book of Revelation in the Bible, and it is one mystery after another!
As I sit here and write I have some sort of a plan for what I think my future may hold, but truthfully the whole thing is a mystery and only God knows for sure what will happen. Thankfully, I have come to a place of peace with that and trust God that whatever happens—whether I like it or I don’t—He will be with me, and therefore, I need not fear… and neither do you.
I love the following statement by the apostle Paul:
For I resolved to know nothing (to be acquainted with nothing, to make a display of the knowledge of nothing, and to be conscious of nothing) among you except Jesus Christ (the Messiah) and Him crucified.
1 Corinthians 2:2
It seems to me that I can hear the passion in Paul’s statement, and I think when he said it, he said it with an emphasis. It was as if he was completely finished with trying to understand everything and made a decision to know nothing but Christ!
I believe that knowing Him is the only way we can find peace with all of the unanswered questions in life. Paul was a scholar, and discovering the answers to things had been a large part of his life. He was highly educated, and at times people who are highly educated have to learn to embrace childlike faith. We know that God revealed Himself to Paul in a startling way, and one that could not be denied, but like all of us, Paul eventually had to trust without sight or understanding. I don’t mean to say that we stop using our brain. God gave it to us and He does expect us to use it, but we cannot find God with it, because He is a mystery that cannot be understood with the finite mind. He can be grasped with the heart by faith. It is amazingly relaxing when we finally decide to simply believe, and to cease from having to understand.
I was an expert at reasoning for most of my life until I was about 50 years old. That represents a lot of wasted and frustrating years. My mind roamed around and around trying to find answers to things that only God knew, and He wasn’t telling anyone yet. God reveals things in His timing and not necessarily when we would like to know them. He withholds information purposely in order to train us to trust Him! As long as what we say we believe is just an idea, it doesn’t amount to much. Only when what we believe is tested and tried do we discover the true value of our faith. We can say that we trust God all day long, but if we fear the unknown, then in reality, we don’t trust God.
Joyfully, instead of trying to figure things out, we can trust God to reveal them at the right time. We are exhorted in God’s Word to lean not to our own understanding, but in all of our ways to trust God with our mind and heart (see Proverbs 3:5–6). Go ahead and try it; you will start to enjoy life more than ever before.
Use some of the time you previously spent trying to figure things out seeking to know God better, and then you will have insight into secrets and mysteries also.
[For I always pray to] the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, that He may grant you a spirit of wisdom and revelation [of insight into mysteries and secrets] in the [deep and intimate] knowledge of Him.
Ephesians 1:17
If we seek to know things, we may never know God as we should, but if we seek to know Him, we can be assured that He will show us everything we need to know at the exact right time.
If we seek to know things, we may never know God as we should, but if we seek to know Him, we can be assured that He will show us everything we need to know at the exact right time.
Reasoning is not only a waste of time, but it is energy-draining. It is a work of the flesh, and works always drain us of energy and leave us frustrated. Nothing is worse than trying repeatedly to do something that we just simply cannot do.
Reasoning is also the root of confusion. It is impossible to become confused if we refuse to try to figure things out. We may certainly ponder a thing and pray for understanding, but excessive reasoning is quite another thing.
I have a guideline for myself that I will share with you. I do a lot of thinking, so in some ways I suppose we could say that I am a “mental” person. I have a lot of things that I have to think about, like the many messages I need to prepare for television programs and conferences, as well as books I write and interviews I do. However, when I think to the point where I start feeling confused, that is my signal that I have moved away from healthy thinking into ungodly reasoning that will lead to trouble for my soul. God is not the author of confusion (see 1 Corinthians 14:33), so when you feel confused, stop and ask yourself why you are. You will find that you are trying to figure something out you should just pray about and trust God to reveal at the right time.
You may feel afraid giving up the human instinct to “figure it out”; I know I did. I was really frightened to not have all of the answers, because then I felt out of control, and I didn’t like that feeling. God had to teach me that even when I felt in control, I really wasn’t, and that is true for all of us. Whatever we do manage to control, there are thousands of other things we are not in control of, and if God did not keep those things under control, everything in our life would be total chaos. The very thought of not having all the answers to everything was frightening to me, so I had to do it afraid in order to stop reasoning.
Each time I felt confused and knew that I was once again in an area I needed to not be in, I said, “I will trade this reasoning for trust,” and I did it even though it frightened me and made me uncomfortable.
Recently someone told me they needed to meet with me face-to-face about some problem in an area of the ministry, but we could not meet for a couple of weeks. They requested that I not require them to give me any information before that meeting. After thinking about it way too long, I thought I knew what they wanted to meet about, and so I was satisfied in my soul and I didn’t think about it anymore. However, when we met I was totally wrong about what they wanted. Sometimes merely thinking we have something figured out will comfort us, so why not just think (believe) that God has everything figured out and find comfort from that?
Fear of the unknown certainly shows up when we begin thinking about all of the people we love who perhaps are not currently making good decisions. We wonder what may happen to them if they don’t make some healthy changes in their lives. Each person ultimately has the responsibility of making their own decisions, and we cannot control their decisions through any amount of worry or concern. Thankfully, we can pray; when we do, God will deal with them and give them every opportunity to turn their lives in a good direction. If an opportunity presents itself, we may be able to speak a word of wisdom, direction, or even correction when appropriate, but we cannot control other people’s destinies no matter how much we would like to.
We worry about our children when they are growing up—especially the ones who seem to have “issues.” One of my daughters and one of my sons hated school and honestly didn’t care what kind of grades they got. I remember worrying a lot about what would happen to them in the future because they both only wanted to have fun and seemed to have no concern at all beyond that. But if we fast-forward 25 years, the son I mentioned is now one of two CEOs of Joyce Meyer Ministries. At the age of 33, he handles a tremendous amount of responsibility and does an excellent job. You see that all of the worrying was useless. Thankfully, I did some praying, and God heard those prayers along with the prayers of others and things have turned out fine. The daughter I mentioned who could barely keep track of herself at the age of 17 now helps me keep my life organized! She is a wife and mother of four children and handles a great deal of responsibility. I believe I can say with assurance that if you pray for your loved ones, God will go to work. And one thing is certain: If God cannot convince a person to change, we certainly cannot. Today you can choose to cast the care of your loved ones onto God and let Him take care of them. Pray and trust that God is working no matter what you see or feel.
Fear of the unknown can be ever-present unless we come to terms with it. God knows what we don’t know, and He loves us and will always take care of us. Beyond that, there isn’t much we have to know, and whatever we do need to know, God will surely reveal at the right time.