“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.” (Psalm 23:4)
The dread of illness can be more damaging than the illness. The fear of failure can be more fatal than the failure. Go through the list of phobias which have multiplied in an age of anxiety and see how many of them are what Archibald MacLeish called "faceless fears." That is, they have no substance, no shape, no bodily image that you can face or fight. They're shadows. Fear of the dark -- fear of open places -- fear of closed places -- fear of criticism -- fear of the future -- fear of old age -- fear of death -- all the way to phobophobia, which is the fear of fear. There are seventy-two listed phobias, most of them shadows, ghosts. They have no power to hurt except through fear of them.
Obviously then, one of the great needs of life is to keep our fears manageable. And one of the great contributions that religious faith makes to wholesome life is right here. Nothing takes the fear out of life so much as an awareness deep within of God's nearness and His loving concern. "I will fear no evil for You are with me." The particular dread the psalmist speaks about is the common fear of death. He likens it to a shadow: "though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…" There's nothing much to fear in a shadow. The shadow of a dog can't bite. The shadow of a snake can't sting. And when life is undergirded by a consciousness of God's presence and concern, we're released from the fear of many shadows and get beyond the reach of many seeming evils.
-- Wallace Hamilton in “Where Now Is Thy God?”
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