Facing the worst

"And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear" (Philippians 1:14).

I put a check mark at this verse in my Bible. Why would Paul's incarceration "encourage" most of the brothers to speak the word of God more fearlessly? I seem to recall that when brother John the Baptist was in the hoosegow, it had a very different effect on him: It made him doubt. It made him question if he had heard from God after all, and if Jesus was the one he thought he was. Jesus had to set him straight by rehearsing the Old Testament predictions of the Messiah: The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear … (Isaiah 29:18; 35:4-6; 61:1).

But the brothers who saw that preaching landed Paul in jail became more fearless than before, and I think I understand it now. The worst of fear is the power of the threat. Once the thing threatened is actually upon you, it is rarely as bad as it seemed. Or rather, when it is no longer hypothetical but a present reality, you find that there is grace for it. C.S. Lewis observed in his journal about his wife's dying that one never faces Cancer, with a capital "C"; one only faces each moment that comes. And some moments are rough spots, and some are boring, and some are even unexpectedly lighthearted. "The thing" itself is never what you imagined.

Maybe the specter of prison time was what Paul's fellow evangelists were all afraid of for so long. And once they saw that Paul was in it, and that he was OK, they knew that prison was doable. There is life even behind bars. There are opportunities for Christ. The palace guard was getting the gospel through that little unforeseen turn in the road (Philippians 1:13). Not only that, but Caesar's household was getting the gospel (Philippians 4:22).

Once you meet the worst of your fears, and you see that God is there and has a reason for it, it encourages you to trust His plan the next time around, when you are perplexed again. And if the next time is the gallows, then at that point another verse becomes operative:

"Do not fear those who kill the body and after that have nothing more that they can do" (Luke 12:4).