I just came back to my computer after an engagement with my dryer. I fear the dryer won. To be precise, the dryer vent won. Last week I noticed that it was taking an inordinate amount of time for a load of laundry to dry. I checked all the regular vents and cleaned them to no avail. This left the tubing that comes out of the bottom of the dryer and goes into the wall … all in the back of my dryer in the teeny-tiny space in my laundry room. Checking and cleaning this requires pulling the dryer away from the wall and reminding my mid-life body that it was at one time a gymnast and it can, in fact, bend, jump and climb into that tiny space. This time my body required this reminder several times as the dryer vent tube stubbornly refused to stay put once I had cleaned it out and replaced it.

I had the chance as I jumped and climbed to think about a post I’ve been reading (and commenting on) this morning. Brother Maynard’s been writing about the culture of fear that has taken over in the United States and (to a lesser extent) in Canada. He’s also been writing about what a Christian response to that might be and what the major Christian mouthpieces have been saying. I wrote a couple of comments, and started to loose my temper. It’s a sore subject for me. You see, despite the fact that there has been no further attacks on our soil since 2001, I believe the terrorists won. I should actually rephrase that, we have lost. We have given up. Retreated when we ought to have stood firm. Handed our inalienable rights over to them on a silver platter. Christians stood first in line to do this.

I have to wonder about that. I can’t make any claims to have read the entire Bible. But I have read quite a bit of it. Enough to know that one of the primary themes that runs throughout the whole of Scripture is “do not fear, for I, your God, am with you.” So when I turn on the Christian radio stations and hear the talking heads there with their messages of fear, I have to wonder just which god they believe in. The God I read about in my Bible tells me not to fear, that even when all things seem arrayed against me and those I love, I am to remember that He is for me. That all things cannot be measured by what happens in this life. I was especially reminded of this as I read in Job 38 the other day:

1 Then the LORD answered Job out of the storm. He said:

2 “Who is this that darkens my counsel
with words without knowledge?

3 Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.

4 “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.

5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?

6 On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone-

7 while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?

8 “Who shut up the sea behind doors
when it burst forth from the womb,

9 when I made the clouds its garment
and wrapped it in thick darkness,

10 when I fixed limits for it
and set its doors and bars in place,

11 when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;
here is where your proud waves halt’?

12 “Have you ever given orders to the morning,
or shown the dawn its place,

13 that it might take the earth by the edges
and shake the wicked out of it?

14 The earth takes shape like clay under a seal;
its features stand out like those of a garment.

15 The wicked are denied their light,
and their upraised arm is broken.

16 “Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea
or walked in the recesses of the deep?

17 Have the gates of death been shown to you?
Have you seen the gates of the shadow of death?

18 Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth?
Tell me, if you know all this.

19 “What is the way to the abode of light?
And where does darkness reside?

20 Can you take them to their places?
Do you know the paths to their dwellings?

21 Surely you know, for you were already born!
You have lived so many years!

22 “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow
or seen the storehouses of the hail,

23 which I reserve for times of trouble,
for days of war and battle?

24 What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed,
or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth?

25 Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain,
and a path for the thunderstorm,

26 to water a land where no man lives,
a desert with no one in it,

27 to satisfy a desolate wasteland
and make it sprout with grass?

28 Does the rain have a father?
Who fathers the drops of dew?

29 From whose womb comes the ice?
Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens

30 when the waters become hard as stone,
when the surface of the deep is frozen?

31 “Can you bind the beautiful Pleiades?
Can you loose the cords of Orion?

32 Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons
or lead out the Bear with its cubs?

33 Do you know the laws of the heavens?
Can you set up God’s dominion over the earth?

34 “Can you raise your voice to the clouds
and cover yourself with a flood of water?

35 Do you send the lightning bolts on their way?
Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?

36 Who endowed the heart with wisdom
or gave understanding to the mind?

37 Who has the wisdom to count the clouds?
Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens

38 when the dust becomes hard
and the clods of earth stick together?

39″Do you hunt the prey for the lioness
and satisfy the hunger of the lions

40when they crouch in their dens
or lie in wait in a thicket

41 Who provides food for the raven
when its young cry out to God
and wander about for lack of food?

I was quite simply reminded that civilizations come and go. I can choose to fear those who would do evil or I can trust in good. I will not repay evil for evil, I will (with God at my back) overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:19)