What Does FEAR Spell for the Newsmakers?

Matt Coddington 
MDI Contributor

The term “fake news” is a term we’re all familiar with by now, given the fact that we are constantly inundated by national news and events. Instead of giving an unbiased and simple report of occurrences, newsmakers take the occurrence and twist the details to suit their agenda, thereby manipulating and influencing people. Through this twisting of details, newsmakers can, and do, create fear … F.E.A.R: “Fake Events Appearing Real.”

Look at yourself for a moment though. When you go through your set of experiences each day, whether they be related to spouses, children, work, health, finances, home, community, country, legal, the past, the present, or the future… do you not in fact have a newsmaker in your own mind? And does your own personal newsmaker simply and objectively report the details and facts of what you’re going through at any given moment without bias or opinion? Doubtful.

For you and I though, the events are real though. So perhaps “Fake Events Appearing Real” should be changed to “False Evidence Appearing Real.” And that’s how our personal newsmaker sometimes works. Your newsmaker will take a set of circumstances and the details of those circumstances or events, the evidence you perceive, and twist them so you think they’re real, when in fact it is just fear. F.E.A.R., False Evidence Appearing Real.

Never underestimate the cunning of your newsmaker.

Just like the newsmakers on the local, state, national, or global level, your newsmaker is smart, deceptive, and talented. He can manipulate you in an instant, causing you to think, say, or do things that can cause subtle or great harm to others and yourself, causing you to not be the man you’ve always wanted to be, to engage in battles with weaker opponents, to not be an example to children, and for sure, to not honor the truth because you’ve been duped by your own inability to discern what’s going on in your own mind.

At the end of the day, all of the present struggles, the worry about the future, the regrets of the past, the striving to do or have more before the lights finally and permanently go out, the emotional battles that make you feel as though you’re a boat in a storm, and the slow grind of futility that you, I, and all men feel and experience at some point, is fear, plain and simple.

Apparently there is some debate about the number of times, and in various forms, that the words “Do Not Be Afraid” is written in the Bible. Many say over 300 times is this message conveyed. When everything is spinning, and my newsmaker is busy at work blasting out headlines that only I hear and see, causing me to struggle, worry, and react in ways that are counter to the man I’ve always wanted to be, and definitely counter to the man God has always wanted me to be, I do my best to bring my focus back to Him, remember his words to not be afraid, remember that He always keeps His word, and that my newsmaker is just feeding me a bunch of False Evidence meant to Appear Real. F.E.A.R.

In reality, there’s no need to be afraid. Everything will ultimately work out for the best, and everything will get done. Perhaps not in the way we think it should in the moment. But remember, our thoughts on how things should go might just be the work of – you guessed it – our own newsmakers.