I'm not the Conqueror of the World

1 John 5:5 - "Who, then, is conqueror of the world? The one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God."

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John wrote this at a time when being a Christian required courage.  The Christians were being prosecuted for their faith.  John was promising them that by believing in Jesus they would be able to conquer the world. They may not conquer the world in this life but in believing in Jesus Christ they would conquer this world.

What am I supposed to conquer? To be honest with you, I don’t think that I am supposed to conquer the world. I don’t think that I am supposed to conquer my neighborhood. Being married, I know that I am not going to conquer my house. So what am I supposed to conquer?

I think today, the world we are to conquer is fear.  As Christians today, it is in fear that we are defeated. I will state that again, fear defeats us. Fear has crippled us as Christians. In fear we say “I would like to do more for people but I just can’t do anything,” or “I would like to be more involved in church, but I have no talent.” It’s not that you can’t. It’s not that you don’t have talent.  It’s because you fear.  It’s a fear of failure or fear of what other people think

The thing each of us must remember is that we all fear something. Our encounters with fear throughout our lives affect us and our response to that fear can leave us weak. We are called to conquer not just the fear, but our response when we face that fear. We conquer fear in our faith.

We are all afraid of failure. God says “Fear not for I am with you.” If God asks you to do something, you will be able to do it. If God calls you to his service, God gives you the talent for that service. God says, “I am with you.” God is with us and that means that God can use what we fear the most and make it our greatest gift.

When I was eleven years old, I was asked to ride with my aunt to my grandmother’s house. It was a 50 mile one way trip on a two lane rural highway. She was going after she got off work at 10:00 p.m. and my aunt did not want to be on the road alone, so I was sent along.

As we drove, there was no moon and the road was deserted.  We were actually lucky the road was empty.  At about the half-way point was a railroad viaduct. On this bridge, my aunt had an epileptic seizure. I reached over stomped on the brake and guided the car to the opposite side of the road. I was scared. 

This was before cell phones and there were no houses within sight.  I didn’t know how to drive. My aunt wouldn’t let me drive. She kept saying, “Billy, don’t tell your momma, please don’t tell your momma.”  It took us about 2 hours to drive the last 25 miles.

As I grew older, my greatest fear would be that I would date someone who had seizures. In high school and college, I had friends who dated girls with epilepsy. I had this unrealistic idea that only girls and women had seizures.  And I did not want to be in a relationship with a person who suffered from this for the rest of my life. 

I met a girl, fell in love, dated and then she became my wife. Eight months after we got married, she had her first epileptic seizure. We have been married for 29 years and I still see the pretty little eighteen year old girl I married. 

God uses our fears for his greatness. I believe that I had always felt some call to ministry but I never thought it would be as a Catholic Deacon. Because of my wife, I became Catholic. Because of her epilepsy, I prayed a lot and have had to put all my trust in God. I heard his call clearer than ever.

Through God’s grace and my belief in Jesus Christ, I have conquered one of the fears in my world. I have other fears. I think I am going to be finding these fears in my ministry as a deacon. God has called me to go and do his work. I'm not the conqueror of the world, my neighborhood, or my home. Christ called me to work in his battle for the world, in what I feared the most.

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Prayer: God, you give us strength to conquer our fears in this world, you give to us the ability to do your will.  Allow us to see this in ourselves, restore our lives without fear and give us strength found in Jesus, the Son of God; Lord, anoint your people. Amen.