Neither Fear Ye Their Fear

As I sit in an airport in Spain, ready to return home, I am reminded of this video from President Nelson when he almost crashed in an airplane. He said this: “I was in a small airplane, and all of a sudden the engine on the wing caught fire. It exploded, and burning oil was poured all over the right side of the airplane. And we started to dive toward the earth. We were spinning down to our death. Oh, this woman across the aisle, I just was so sorry for her. She was just absolutely, uncontrollably hysterical. And I was calm. I was totally calm even though I knew I was going down to my death. I was ready to meet my Maker. We didn't crash. We didn't die. The spiral dive extinguished the flame. The pilot got control and started the other engine up. We made an emergency landing out in a field.” I thought of this video in particular because I did a video call with my family at home while sitting here, and one child was rather distraught (like the woman in this video) over the presence of some bugs in the house. Of course that fear was irrational, but we all have at times fears that in the grand scheme of things are not worth worrying about. We need not be afraid of the things that the world is afraid of because we know in whom we have faith. President Nelson, continued, “I thought, through that experience, if you've got faith, you can handle difficulties, knowing that with an eternal perspective, all will be well.” These words of Isaiah come to mind: “Neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid. Sanctify the Lord of hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread” (Isaiah 8:12-13). In general we need not have fear over the things that the world fears—we should rather have fear towards the Lord, meaning that our greatest worry is to do His will and keep His commandments. Like Alma, we should “[fear] that [we] should do wrong in the sight of God” (Mosiah 26:13).

               As always, the Savior is our best example of this. We see throughout His life how He always focused on doing the will of His Father first—He was always more concerned His Father than with pleasing those around Him. We see that especially in this exchange with Peter: “From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men” (Matthew 16:21-23). Naturally Peter was opposed to the idea that Jesus would suffer and die, and so he tried to resist this prophecy of the Savior. But Jesus was absolutely focused on His mission and could not entertain for a second the thought of pleasing those around Him—even His beloved apostles—over accomplishing His mission that the Father had given Him. It was not death that He feared but rather not fulfilling the mission that His Father had given Him. And for all of us our greatest fear should be not accomplishing those things that the Father would have us do in this life. Our most important mission is as the Savior described to Hyrum Smith: “Behold, this is your work, to keep my commandments, yea, with all your might, mind and strength” (Doctrine and Covenants 11:20). We need not fear the things that the world fears; we need only be afraid of not keeping the commandments that the Lord has given to us and fulfilling the mission He has prepared for us.