Antidote to Fear – Sunday, March 31, 1946
The news that breaks upon us these days would unsettle the lives of all of us if we would let it. We are daily exposed to report and counter report, to opinion and counter opinion, to accusation and denial, alarm, mistrust, duplicity, and uncertainty, both from near and far places—all of which turns our thoughts again to a phrase from the Psalms: “He shall not be afraid of evil tidings.” (Psalm 112-7.) But, unfortunately, we are afraid of “evil tidings.”
Unfortunately, the peace within us is often shaken by the tragedy, the contradiction, the conflict, the clamor, by the impact of the headlines, by voices that bring report of all of the injustice and misery and stupidity that have or could be devised by men, as a result of which there are times when our waking hours are shadowed by fear, when sleep is made restless by fear, and when, dreams are colored and fashioned by the fear of evil tidings. But, fortunately, there are ways of casting out many of our fears, and one way is not to leave room for them in our lives. It is usually the vacant house that acquires a reputation for being haunted. And it is perhaps equally true that the more vacant our lives are the more likely are they to be haunted by fears. The idle man has more room for his fears, more time to feed and indulge them, than has he whose life is filled with good works.
As one antidote to fear, then, suppose that as individuals and as a nation we get back to work, and rediscover the peace and the joy of giving our full energies to the creation of good and useful things. Surely we and all the world have need of every good thing that we can bring into being, and many needless fears will haunt our lives until we get in and do the job that needs to be done. There is another great and abiding antidote to fear, and that is faith—and any man can have it if he wants it and lives for it—faith in the essential goodness and purposefulness of life, faith in the personal reality of a living God whose glorious purposes will be, accomplished—no matter what our fears are and no matter who would have it otherwise. God lives and all men are His children—and life isn’t going to cease here or hereafter merely because of the willfulness or the stupidity of some men—and the sooner we crowd out such fears with faith and work, the sooner we shall know some of the peace and the joy of heaven on earth.
“The Spoken Word,” heard over Radio Station K S L and the nationwide Columbia Broadcasting System, from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Sunday, Mar. 81, 1946. Copyright 1946.
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March 31, 1946
Broadcast Number 0,867