Fighting Terror
The War on Terror is over. This was the major announcement covered by every major news outlet on August 30, 2021. For 20 years, the United States has been engaged in the War on Terror in response to the horrific terrorist attack on the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001.
In his address to Congress on September 20, 2001, President Bush made the following comments,
“Tonight, we are a country awakened to danger and called to defend freedom. Our grief has turned to anger and anger to resolution. Whether we bring our enemies to justice or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done.”
And for the past two decades, the United States has been fighting against terrorism. For 20 years, we have sent our soldiers across the world to end different terrorist cells and factions and to dismantle terrorist movements. Many died. Many more came home wounded, physically and psychologically. We have paid a great price in an attempt to defeat terrorism.
However, while we have been engaged in this war, a silent enemy snuck in on 9/11 and has been wreaking havoc on our nation: Fear. President Bush’s words were highly prophetic in that he had declared the reality felt by every American—that we had awakened to danger. The danger was always present. It was just hidden by our American false sense of security. And once that security was taken away, fear invaded our lives.
We responded as a nation with tanks, drones, soldiers, and guns. But no matter how many terrorists we killed, fear has continued to permeate our society and has influenced our behavior, prejudices, and relationships. But wasn’t the whole point of the War on Terror to fight terror?
The simple truth is that you can fight terrorism with guns, but you cannot fight terror with guns. Fear is an invisible enemy that causes us to distrust others, to believe in false narratives about authorities and government, treat others with unkindness or aggression, and isolate ourselves in a vain attempt to protect our hearts and minds. We live in a nation that has been gripped by fear: fear of terrorism, fear of authorities abusing us, fear of identity theft, fear of viruses, fear of offending others, fear of being wrong, conspiracy theories, fear of never-ending COVID-19 regulations and mandates, fear of failure, fear, fear, fear, fear, fear!
Fear is a slave master of the worst kind because there is no way to protest or rise up against it in a revolution. There is no way to litigate fear. Fear is an invisible tyrant!
But this does not mean fear cannot be overcome! It can!
1 John 4:8 tells us that "God is love.” He is the perfect expression of love. And Jesus is the perfect expression of God. We see this love perfectly expressed through Jesus’ life and sacrifice. John goes on to write, "if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us” (vs. 12) and “So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us” (vs. 16-17). What John is trying to communicate is that as we experience and develop confidence in God’s love for us and as we love others the way that Christ loved others—even the unlovely—God’s perfect love begins to be perfect in us.
And that’s a big deal! Why? Because John goes on to say, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear” (vs. 18).
Time out! (Zack Morris, anyone?) The way to overcome the fear that grips us is love—God’s love. A life of fear and a life of secure, one-way, unconditional love for God, self, and others are completely incompatible. Fear and love cannot coexist because only one can captivate our hearts! So when we come to God and lay down all of our doubts, pain, distrust, and fear at His feet, He saturates us with His perfect love, and it drives out all fear—breaking its tyrannical hold over our hearts and minds.
As Christians, we are not only called to live free from fear but to also be a light of hope that leads others out of their bondage to fear—not through aggressive debates over facts or shaming others with a pseudo-enlightened spirituality but through living and witnessing to others about our faith and confidence in Christ and His resurrected life.
So the War on Terror is over. But we still have the War on Fear in front of us. And the only way forward—the only chance we have at living free—is through submitting our hearts and minds to Jesus and allowing God to reveal His love to us and perfect it in us.
Be free, my friends.
