Beech Tree News Network

In Frank Herbert’s epic book, DUNE, the young Duke Paul Atreides and his mother, Lady Jessica, have been betrayed by a family friend, and have to run for their lives into the desert sands of the unfamiliar planet.  On a “thopter,” heading into a sandstorm, a frightened Paul remembers the litany his mother taught him.

“Fear is a mind-killer.  Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration.  I will face my fear.  I will permit it to pass over me and through me.  And when it has gone past me, I will turn to see fear’s path.  Where the fear has gone, there will be nothing.  Only I will remain.”

If you find yourself in the throes of fear, it matters what you say to yourself.

Do you know the story of the three Hebrew boys and the fiery furnace?  If you want to read it for yourself, you can find it in the Bible, in the book of Daniel.  For some background, the three guys were part of the Jewish people who were taken captive by the Chaldeans when they sacked Jerusalem.  They were taken to Babylon, the capital of the Chaldean empire.  Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego distinguished themselves among the Jewish captives, and they came to the attention of the king, Nebuchadnezzar, who gave them provincial administrative jobs.

Nebuchadnezzar was one of those kings who couldn’t get enough of his subjects’ adoration, so he decided to build a large golden image and set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon.  He invited the administrators from all the provinces, of which the three Hebrew boys were part, to the dedication.  He issued a proclamation that when the music sounded, everyone was to bow down and worship the image.  As a little extra incentive, Nebuchadnezzar had a furnace built right next door.  Anybody who didn’t bow down to the image would be thrown into the blazing fire.  Of course, the three Hebrew boys refused to bow.  

There’s always a tattle tale in a group of politicians, and this story is no different.  Word got back to the king that there were three guys who didn’t obey the king’s command, so he called for them to be brought before him, and he asked them himself if the rumor was true.  They told the king it was true, because they didn’t bow down to idols, they worshiped the one true God.  The king asked them, “What god is there who can deliver you out of my hands?  They answered, “Our God, whom we serve, is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire, but even if He does not, we will not worship your golden image.  Their answer really set Nebuchadnezzar off, and he commanded that the fire in the furnace to be stoked to seven times hotter than it was currently.  If Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego weren’t afraid, they should have been.

If you find yourself in the throes of fear, it matters what you say to other people.

Nebuchadnezzar watched from his box seat in the arena as the three boys were bound then thrown into the furnace.  To his amazement, he watched as the three boys walked around in the fire.  Not only were there three guys in the fire, a fourth was there with them.  

“I see 4 men, and the appearance of the 4th is like a son of the gods,” Nebuchadnezzar says.  The king calls the 3 boys out of the fire, and proclaims that the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego has delivered them.  He makes a decree that “any people, nation or tongue that speaks anything offensive against their God, shall be torn limb from limb and their houses reduced to a rubbish heap, because there is no other god who is able to deliver in this way.”  (The Chaldeans were very creative when it came to punishment.)

  Your positive words are fear’s greatest adversary—fear’s greatest fear.