10.
Fear/Love
Effective
child-rearing has to include an element of each of two seemingly opposite
emotional responses: fear and love. [By the way, so does
teaching, governing, being an employer or manager, or any other position where
you have human beings under your dominion in one way or another.]
Fear and love are not opposites; they
are two sides of the same coin. As the great humanitarian and Jewish
concentration camp survivor, Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel, profoundly pointed
out, “The opposite of love is not
hate; it’s indifference… The opposite of faith is not heresy;
it’s indifference.” Fear is love turned on its side, and vice versa. Any
parent worthy of the title will tell you, in
confidence, that love by itself is only effective to a certain point as a
teaching motivator. At some point, there has to be the fear of consequences. But at the same time, you cannot “rule by fear” without losing the love and
thus the motivational desire of your subjects.
All of that sounds too clinical, but
think about it through the context of your experience as a parent: You love
your children. Undoubtedly,
assuredly, completely; otherwise, you’re probably not reading this. But
aren’t there times when you’ve found that the only way to get their
attention is to either raise your voice or threaten a consequence if they don’t
behave a certain way? In those cases, they don’t react out of love (“Oh, daddy, I love you so much that I’ll
change my ingrained behavior for you merely out of love for you!”), but out
of fear of some consequence, real or imagined (it had better be real, or it won’t work the next time), if
they don’t (“Uh-oh…I’d better fix this so
I don’t get in trouble!”).
We’re NOT advocating a repressive regime
in your household – we’re pointing out what you already do. The only real
issue is where that line is drawn
between love and fear.
(We
really could use a new word in the English language for this delicate parental
combination of fear and love. For now, this text will refer to the emotion of
respect and affection, with just a hint of trepidation, as fear/love.)
As
always, we turn to God the Father for the answers.
Our first lesson in fear/love, interestingly, comes from a
pagan. King Artaxerxes of Persia, whom Nehemiah served as royal cupbearer, is
who Nehemiah must ask for permission to travel to the newly resettled portion
of the Holy Land and follow God’s lead to help his people, a desire which was brought
to Nehemiah’s heart in chapter 1 of his memoir. (Cyrus, the previous king of
Persia, had granted this small portion of Jerusalem and its surrounding five
hundred square miles or so to the Jews to resettle under Persian auspices.)
Reading Nehemiah 2:1-7, watch how
Xerxes expresses both concern for his dear cupbearer, obviously a person he
cares for, with professional concern for his position:
1In the month of Nisan, in the
twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was before him, I took up the wine
and gave it to the king. Now I had not been sad in his presence. 2And the king said to me, “Why is your
face sad, seeing you are not sick? This is nothing but sadness of the heart.”
Then I was very much afraid. 3I said to the king, “Let the king
live forever! Why should not my face be sad, when the city, the place of my
fathers’ graves, lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?” 4Then the king said to me, “What are
you requesting?” So I prayed to the God of heaven. 5And I said to the king, “If it
pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, that you
send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers’ graves, that I may rebuild it.” 6And the king said to me (the queen
sitting beside him), “How long will you be gone, and when will you return?” So
it pleased the king to send me when I had given him a time. 7And I said to the king, “If it
pleases the king, let letters be given me to the governors of the province
Beyond the River, that they may let me pass through until I come to Judah, 8and a letter to Asaph, the keeper of
the king’s forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of
the fortress of the temple, and for the wall of the city, and for the house
that I shall occupy.” And the king granted me what I asked, for the good hand
of my God was upon me.
Nehemiah is distressed by the
condition of his homeland, and he has been called by God to help in its
reconstruction. Artaxerxes hears the concerns of his cupbearer – if you have someone whose job it is to
handle and test your drink to keep you from getting poisoned, you’d better
trust them! And caring is a natural outgrowth of trust – and answers in the
spirit of fear/love in verse six: Yes, you may go, but give me a time frame
and be back by then! Love allowed him to leave Artaxerxes side
for a period of what must have been several years (a significant sacrifice on the king’s part!), and fear put
a deadline on Nehemiah’s absence.
The other important lesson is one we
must ALWAYS follow – hidden in verse 4, when Xerxes asks Nehemiah, “What are you requesting?” Nehemiah’s
immediate response is to pray to God for the right words. The result? “And the king granted me what I asked, for the
good hand of my God was upon me.”
†
So now, it’s several months later, and
Nehemiah has led his people in the manner God would have him lead, despite the
violent opposition to the reconstruction project underway on Jerusalem’s walls.
(As much as Sanballat
and Tobiah and Gersham are the enemies in Nehemiah’s version of the tale, think
of it from their perspective: Far from Persian military protection, they
are suddenly confronted with these Jewish outsiders – again, from their
perspective – essentially building a fortress in their midst, moving to
“their” territory in frightening numbers. How would you expect them to
react?)
The rebuilding of Jerusalem’s walls takes
place in a virtual war zone – “Half of my
servants worked on construction, and half held the spears, shields, bows, and
coats of mail” (4:15) – and as the 52-day project nears completion,
we see both sides of the fear/love of God in sharp contrast in Nehemiah
chapter 5.
First, there is the issue of those who
own land oppressing those who don’t within the Hebrew community itself,
violating the commandment not to be usurers and punishing their neighbors with
burdensome interest, even to the point of enslavement. Nehemiah’s outburst in
itself utilizes the fear of him as governor to some extent, but more
appropriately he uses the fear/love
of God to accomplish His mission:
6I was very angry when I heard their
outcry and these words. 7I took counsel with myself, and I
brought charges against the nobles and the officials. I said to them, “You are
exacting interest, each from his brother.” And I held a great assembly against
them 8and said to them, “We, as far as we
are able, have bought back our Jewish brothers who have been sold to the
nations, but you even sell your brothers that they may be sold to us!” They
were silent and could not find a word to say. 9So I said, “The thing that you are
doing is not good. Ought you not to walk in the fear of our God to
prevent the taunts of the nations (of) our enemies? 10Moreover, I and my brothers and my
servants are lending them money and grain. Let us abandon this exacting of
interest. 11Return to them this very day their
fields, their vineyards, their olive orchards, and their houses, and the
percentage of money, grain, wine, and oil that you have been exacting from
them.” 12Then they said, “We will restore
these and require nothing from them. We will do as you say.” And I
called the priests and made them swear to do as they had promised. 13I also shook out the fold of my
garment and said, “So may God shake out
every man from his house and from his labor who does not keep this promise. So
may he be shaken out and emptied.” And all the assembly said “Amen” and
praised the Lord. And the people did as they had
promised. (Nehemiah 5:6-13)
The initial agreement comes from
Nehemiah’s expressing the love of God for bringing “our Jewish brothers
who have been sold to the nations” back to the Holy Land, and then the fear
of God (“Ought you not to walk in the
fear of our God?”), finished with the curse of the Lord, if you will,
boldfaced in verse 13. Nehemiah here expresses more of the fear of the
Lord in order to correct a behavior that conflicts with God’s
commandments.
Immediately following that, we see both
sides of this fear/love coin again, this time from the writer himself –
Nehemiah’s efforts to please His Lord in advance, both in fear of
avoiding punishment, but also in search of His blessings, His increased love:
14From the time that I was appointed to
be their governor in the land of Judah, from the twentieth year to the
thirty-second year of Artaxerxes the king, twelve years, neither I nor my
brothers ate the food allowance of the governor. 15The former governors who were before
me laid heavy burdens on the people and took from them for their daily ration
forty shekels (one pound) of silver.
Even their servants lorded it over the people. But I did not do so, because of the fear of God. 16I also persevered in the work on this
wall, and we acquired no land, and all my servants were gathered there for the
work. 17Moreover, there were at my table 150
men, Jews and officials, besides those who came to us from the nations that
were around us. 18Now what was prepared at my expense
for each day was one ox and six choice sheep and birds, and every ten days all
kinds of wine in abundance. Yet for all this I did not demand the food
allowance of the governor, because the service was too heavy on this people. 19Remember
for my good, O my God, all that I have done for this people. (Nehemiah 5:14-19)
He made a point of not taking his allowed ration of silver “because of the fear of
God” (5:15). But reading further, there’s more to it than simple fear. He also refused the higher
governor’s allowance for food because “the service was too heavy on this
people” (5:18). Rather than flaunting his humility, Nehemiah is sharing
his love for the ‘children’ under his
care, the ones given to him to care for by God the Father. This paragraph comes
off more as a report to the Lord out of love for Him, rather than some
braggadocios for posterity.
(One of the best rules in reading and
learning from Scripture? Remembering that for the most part it wasn’t
written for eternal posterity! That’s the hidden beauty of the Bible
– rather than being some full-of-itself religious tome, as many think it is,
it’s really a collection of stories, letters, and memoirs that show God between
the lines more often than face-to-face.)
The memoir of Nehemiah has one more lesson
to share with us in our times of trouble – ask the Lord for His help.
We’ve seen this already in Nehemiah 2:4, but he shows it to us once again when
the city of Jerusalem has its protective walls in place…
4The city was wide and large, but the
people within it were few, and no houses had been rebuilt. 5Then my God put it into my heart to assemble the nobles
and the officials and the people to be enrolled by genealogy. And I found the
book of the genealogy of those who came up at the first…
When in doubt, let God put a solution
in your heart. (And head.)
Now, that solution was fraught with
difficulty. When we finally get to see
that solution (following one of the most
beautiful Jewish celebrations you will ever read, in Nehemiah 8-10!),
it’s not an easy one – here’s Nehemiah 11:1-2 à
1Now the leaders of the people lived
in Jerusalem. And the rest of the people cast lots to bring one out of ten to
live in Jerusalem the holy city, while nine out of ten remained in the other
towns. 2And the people blessed all the men
who willingly offered to live in Jerusalem.
Those people blessed those willingly
moving to Jerusalem because they sure didn’t want to leave their newly-won
land! Choosing people to forcibly dislocate, even for God’s purposes, was not
an easy task. But the people were willing to submit to Nehemiah’s ruling
because of the dichotomous feelings of love for the Lord’s ultimate plan
for His People and the fear of the consequences if His plan was thwarted
by them. (And both feelings applied to
their connection with Nehemiah as well, on a lesser scale.)
Finding that precarious balance between fear/love? That’s
a difficult problem: it’s the rounded hilltop with a slippery slope on both
sides, because it’s so easy to get comfortable being either a full-time “Santa
Claus” OR a full-time drill sergeant. The best advice I can provide is to watch
your children – if you’re bending too far towards love, their obedience to you won’t be what it’s supposed to be; if
you’re leaning too far towards fear,
their obedience might be fine, but the tension and apprehension in
your relationships with them will rise. And
in either case, the sheer predictability of your repetitive nature will
cause the children to tune you out anyway.
Be consistent – but not robotic.
It’s a constant juggling act. But God
never gives us more to handle that we’re capable of.
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