A Meditation on Dread

Human beings are naturally predisposed toward feeling the sensation of fear in certain circumstances. When someone points a gun at me and demands my wallet, my body releases adrenaline, my skin flushes, my hands start to tremble, and so on. Acute stress responses needn't happen only when one is faced with a real and/or physical threat either. People often feel fear, panic, and dread at things which aren't (or at least are not immediate) threats at all, such as heights, spiders, or the ocean. They also might feel fear or dread over more "existential" worries, such as social pressure, despair over the future, regret, or other such things. There are also fears of a more psychological nature, such as cognitive dissonance, and the fear of being wrong.

Here I want to discuss specifically these latter types of dread as they apply to the Christian. I believe that the Christian is in somewhat of a unique position when it comes to fear and dread and that God has provided specific consolations in the Scriptures that speak directly to this matter.