A Thousand Little Tyrants

And the Fear to End All Fears

Several times in the past month, my kids have fretted over expiration dates on items that I had just bought at the grocery store. The approaching “best by” date somehow struck fear into their otherwise hungry bellies. What would happen if we ate it on the exact “best by” date? Isn’t that cutting it close? If I eat it on the next day, will I get very sick? They had seen me sniffing my half and half suspiciously, and they’d heard me mention a recent food recall, and they took it all quite seriously.

In light of our household of food inspectors, devoted exercisers and a couple of OCD cases, I listened to a podcast episode featuring a theologian named Michael Reeves, who, as a bonus, spoke with a British accent. I’m glad I did, because it was a panoramic treatment of our ever-expanding universe of fears— as well as the happy fear that puts them all to rest.

Ironically, fear is the great contagion of our comfy modern existence. We who live in a padded world of seatbelts, airbags, helmets, vaccines, antibiotics, weighted blankets, surgeries, kale smoothies and helicopter parenting are the most miserably neurotic creatures yet. We do more, and have more—and with far less danger—yet we hobble along on antidepressants, anxiety drugs and psychological fads. We moderns don’t need God; we have science, globalists and retinoids to turn our shattered world into an egalitarian heaven of the forever young.

Yet despite our impressive array of God-substitutes, we labor under fear’s curse. The smallest moments invite its lab-coat inspections. You open your refrigerator in the morning to get out your breakfast things only to face a a conundrum; eat the natural, full-fat yogurt and get clogged arteries, or choose the “lite” version with sugar substitutes and get cancer. Thinking of dairy alternatives? Avoid soy, because you’ll grow an extra sex organ and get cancer. If you’re old (nowadays, over 20), you should be drinking collagen peptides in your coffee. Yum.

Moving past the breakfast scene, we get dressed for the day. You may have fancy cosmetics, but make sure they don’t contain 3-butadiene. Don’t know what that is? I don’t either, but avoid it. And are your products cruelty-free? If not, you are a rodent-killer, and shame on you. Embrace the greasy-haired look when short on time; danger lurks in your “dry shampoo” and your sulphate-laden shampoo because they cause cancer, too. Don’t forget your daily sunscreen, either. You’ll get embarrassing age spots and cancer—and shame on you for that, too!

My child’s school just sent out an automated message. It’s letting me know they completed the “active shooter” drill—which nowadays moms need to know, although my own mom watched soap operas in blissful ignorance of our 1980s’ tornado drills. I’m using a phone all day so that I can receive such instant announcements, so in addition, blue screen light may be slowly blinding me.

Speaking of my phone, my speech inspires all sorts of ads that, oddly enough, address the very things I’ve complained about! Ads for wrinkle creams popped up after I mentioned “crow’s feet” the other day. The speech minders could also find a reason to report an opinionated and frequently offensive lady like me, so now I’m wondering if we get exercise breaks in a women’s prison.

Scrolling the news—or the newspeak—the prospects for both justice and intelligence look grim. Another angry loner shot up a crowd. More political revenge is engineered by dark minions of The Regime. Flash mobs enter expensive stores at will, relieving them of all that inequitable luxury. As for intelligence? There’s little to be found in K-12 schools, and even less at universities. My alma mater now boasts a professor specializing in “fat studies” and “fat justice.” She also requires that students provide their pronouns on papers—a multidisciplinary approach to stupidity. Is this the price we must pay for college degrees?

Despite my scrupulously healthy lifestyle, I’m still tempting fate; I didn’t drink 64 ounces of water or consume probiotics today. That only invites more fear, because my gut health were likely the only thing keeping me together, if all the disgusting online ads are right.

Yes, even smart and sensible things deceive us. Exercise, hobbies, cleanliness, or writing—in their success, these good things can overpower us. They morph into tyrannical rulers that threaten dire consequences or heap condemnation and fear when we don’t perform. For some of us, achievement invites this self-imposed slavery.

I must admit that I sometimes bow to little tyrants—competing gods of parenting perfection, everlasting youth, “no regrets”, or guaranteed safety. When I do, it’s only a couple weeks before they immobilize me and reduce me to ashes. I had one of those days recently; my past struggles surrounded me like a torch mob, demanding that I grovel in guilty fear.

Thankfully, there is a fear that dislodges such cruel taskmasters—the fear of God. Our modern sensibilities stumble at the ancient phrase. Even Christians do. When we hear of “fearing God,” we imagine a frowning presence, something more like “The Great and Mighty Oz” melting us into cowardly quivers. Unsurprisingly, we run from the approaching shadow of this mysterious cosmic threat; or we pretend he’s a powerless man behind a curtain.

But God himself tells a very different story of what fearing him looks like. Psalm 25 says God is friends with those who “fear” him. Proverbs 31 says that a woman who “fears” God will be praised. In Malachi, God promises life and peace to those who “fear” him. In Jeremiah 32, he promises to always “do good” to his people, whom he will “inspire” to fear him. Fear is worship; it’s inspired by love.

Yet more often than not—even if only in the private of our minds— we bow instead before the counterfeit gods, slavishly carrying the load of anxiety that they require. We eye God with suspicion or doubt while fending off existential and everyday threats. A thousand little tyrants battle for the throne, capturing us into their chaos when they succeed.

Back to the idea of not needing God, we must ask why “fearing God” sounded so bad in the first place. Could it be that the word “fear” has been twisted by degrees and misunderstood in all its contexts, just as the word “love” has? What Reeves called a modern “allergy to fear” makes it tough to paint an attractive picture of “fearing” God. Words—even the most beautifully scripted ones— are unequal to this task.

I will give it the old college try, though. As a veteran of many fears—both rational and irrational—I will put it into my own words, which not those of a theologian.

To fear God is to surrender to him in awe and great relief, knowing that our noisy universe is governed by a creator whose great heart will quiet my own. A thousand earthbound threats must yield to the one whose power is greater; their voices are muted when faced with heaven’s throne.

I’m not about to switch to a butter and bacon diet or bathe myself in 3-butadiene. I’ll keep wearing a seatbelt and eating lots of broccoli. I continue to parent my kids, exercise faith, and drink green tea. Yet I know that good things, swollen with pride, make insatiable, merciless gods. So with relief I cry again and again to the God who offers mercy, ”I do believe, but help my unbelief!”