HE KNEW FEAR

By Mary Skoglie

There is one thing I know: the Lord God knows the end from the beginning.  This is a fact, pure and simple.  It means Jesus surely knew what He would experience when He came to live among mere men and women.  He of course knew about Calvary.  That was His purpose, to rescue us and be the bridge between God and man.  He knew He would experience poverty and pain and rejection.  But there is one thing I am especially grateful for: He knew fear.

As a person who has dealt with severe panic attacks ever since childhood, I can especially appreciate the fact that Jesus spent some very panicked hours in the Garden of Gethsemane.  Oh, surely, people say, our Lord didn't fear anything.  But according to the Bible, He sweat drops of blood.  This only happens in cases of very severe panic, a level of anxiety of which even I have never known!  I have felt some of the most severe and crippling fears all my life, yet I have never reached that intensity, thank God.  Yet Jesus knew when He came to this world that that was one of the things He would experience, and I am so grateful to Him for that! 

To know that the King of Kings and Lord of Lords was willing to feel fear on my behalf fills my eyes with tears and my heart with eternal gratitude!  All those panic attacks I've had, I haven't been alone.  Jesus knows what fear feels like!  He did it for me and He did it for everyone ever born, so that we wouldn't have to fear death! 

I'm still working out that area of my life, often succumbing painfully to panic.  Yet I know I've never been alone.  The Lord Himself knows how I feel.  And I love Him for that!  He was willing to take on ALL of human nature--except sin, of course.  He's cried our tears.  He knew our hunger and pain.  And yes, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords...He knew fear.

Mary Skoglie writes from Medford, Oregon.