Fear or Light?

What do we fear?  We are afraid of failure, loneliness, aging, sickness and the thoughts and images that others have of us to name a few.  Why are we fearful?  We are scared because we believe that these threats could possibly threaten our comfort level.  We love living comfortably and anything that can get in the way of that creates fear.  One threat that causes purposeful discomfort and, in effect fears, is advertisements.  Marketers use techniques to make us feel uncomfortable and expose our fears, attempting to create new fears to form a large consumer base for mass products.

When I think about the fear of society and its marketability, what first comes to my mind is appearance.  We are a culture that is so absorbed in image and exterior that we have created fear.   I know for a fact that I have felt self-conscious about myself and my appearance.  For example, I see a group of people laughing and I automatically assume it must be about me so I check to see if my fly is down or if my shirt is inside-out and backwards…again.  Although I try not to be concerned with image, it seems that my initial reactions express differently.  Why does this happen?  I believe it is the after-effects of advertisements, marketing and media in general.

Nearly every brand is guilty, but for some reason I feel like focusing on Wal-Mart.  I decided to watch Wal-Mart advertisements on the internet and I realized that mostly all of the families can be assumed or observed as married, with well-behaved children.  They are all well-dressed and they look as if they exercise regularly.  Wonderful!  The most attractive people are at Wal-Mart!  Have you ever been to a Wal-Mart?  This model of customer doesn’t quite fit the image that I’ve seen.  Yet, Wal-Mart and every other company use the image and appearance of their “perfect families” to attract consumers as part of their marketing technique.   The problem is that we are by no means perfect or close to it.  When we see the portrayal of these families, we can sometimes be influenced by the relationship that they have or their appearance because of something in our own family that wasn’t quite perfect.  This causes us to want what they have, and that is where the marketers get us. 

So how do we avoid creating images of false perfection?  Cast out all fear by following Christ and looking to Him instead of worldly images of comparison.  In looking at the world, we will only find fear.  However, in Psalm 27, it says, “The LORD is my light and my salvation – whom shall I fear?  The LORD is the stronghold of my life – of whom shall I be afraid?  When evil men advance against me to devour my flesh, when my enemies and my foes attack me, they will stumble and fall.”  The Lord calls us out of this world of sin and fear and guides us.  As the Psalmist said, He is the light.  In John 3, it says, “This is the verdict” Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.  Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.  But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.”  God, who is the Light, is greater than all fears and sins.