> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://amemamem.com.br/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Fear: The Stranger We Don't Know - URL: https://amemamem.com.br/en/fear-the-stranger-we-dont-know/ - Published: 2026-10-27T13:24:38.000Z - Updated: 2026-11-09T01:05:34.000Z - Description: How much of our decision-making is governed by fears we don't even recognize? - Author: Airton Humber - Tags: #en, #de-o-medo-esse-desconhecido *We know so little about ourselves. And yet we are so sure of so many things.* Fear is part of our lives. We fear losing, suffering, making mistakes, being deceived and facing what we don't know. But there is a question we rarely ask: **How much of our decision-making is governed by fears we don't even recognize?** Sometimes what we call prudence is fear. What we defend as conviction may be an attempt to protect our certainties. And what we judge to be justice may be contaminated by the fear of losing something. Fear can protect us from real dangers. But it can also imprison us in imagined ones. And we cannot always tell one from the other. --- ## Fear and our certainties Elections are an opportunity to observe this phenomenon. In election seasons, warnings arise about what will happen if a certain candidate wins. People who sincerely want the good of their country begin to fear one another. Fear can influence those who govern as much as those who oppose the government. It can feed the defense of one side and the rejection of the other. And when that happens, we run the risk of no longer examining the facts and simply defending what we already believe. But this difficulty doesn't exist only in politics. We also build certainties about our family, our friends, our religion and ourselves. **Not everything we believe is true. And not everything that is true do we believe.** Perhaps we are more afraid of discovering that we were wrong than of continuing to live in error. --- ## What do we really know? We do not fully know the invisible things. We do not fully know God. We do not entirely understand the work of the evil one. And, as surprising as it may seem, we do not fully know ourselves either. The Scriptures show us that the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God, and that it is through the Spirit that we receive what God reveals to us. So, recognizing the limits of our knowledge does not mean giving up on the truth. It may be precisely the beginning of our willingness to know it. When Jesus met the man who had been born blind, he spoke about those who recognize their blindness and those who claim to see. **The problem is not only not seeing. It is believing that we see when we are still blind.** And how hard it is to recognize this when our convictions have become part of our identity! --- ## Fear and reverence When the people of Israel heard the voice of God at Sinai, they were terrified. Moses told them not to be afraid, but that the fear of God should be before them. At first glance, it seems like a contradiction. But there is a difference between the fear that makes us flee and the reverence that leads us to wisdom. Fear can lead us to hide, accuse, attack or seek protection in someone who promises to control whatever threatens us. The fear of the Lord, on the other hand, invites us to recognize who God is, and who we are. Since the garden of Eden, we find human beings hiding, being afraid and trying to shift their responsibility. Perhaps we still do this, in many ways. --- ## Not by might, but by the Spirit God declared to Zerubbabel: **“Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit.”** Force can impose behaviors. Fear can produce obedience. But neither of them, by itself, transforms the human heart. Moses, known as the meekest man on earth, also experienced the limits of his own reaction. At the waters of Meribah, he became angry, spoke rashly and acted differently from what God had instructed him. Meekness did not keep him from stumbling. And James reminds us that whoever does not stumble in what he says is mature, able to keep the whole body in check. Paul, for his part, presents meekness and self-control among the manifestations of the fruit of the Spirit. **True freedom does not consist in being able to control others, but in not being dominated by our own reactions.** And this transformation is not born simply of willpower. It is the fruit of the Spirit's work in us. --- ## Walking without knowing where we are going Abraham heard God's call and set out, not knowing where he was going. He believed, and it was credited to him as righteousness. The righteous will live by faith. Justified through faith, we have peace with God. Faith does not demand that we know the whole path in advance. It allows us to walk trusting the one who leads us. Jesus told Nicodemus that the wind blows where it wishes. We can hear it, but we do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit. This does not mean abandoning discernment or following any impulse that seems spiritual. It means learning to listen, examine and respond, even when the direction we receive goes against our desires and our certainties. **Fear wants guarantees. Faith invites us to trust.** --- ## The freedom of walking by the Spirit Jesus taught us to seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness. And Paul wrote that the Kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Faith works through love. And the fruit of the Spirit begins with love, and is also shown in peace, meekness and self-control. It is a path that does not end in our own needs. Love leads us to the other. Perhaps that is why Jesus taught us to love even our enemies. Not because evil stops being evil, but because we don't have to allow evil to determine what we become. John wrote: **“Perfect love casts out fear.”** It doesn't mean we will never feel fear. It means we can stop being governed by it. We do not know tomorrow. We do not fully know ourselves. And we cannot control the wind. But we can learn to listen. **“If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.”** Perhaps freedom begins when we stop demanding that God confirm our paths and are willing to walk where the Spirit leads us. Because faith comes by hearing. **Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear.** --- **Learn more:** [The power of narratives](https://amemamem.com.br/poder-das-narrativas/) [Not everything I believe is true and not everything that is true do I believe](https://amemamem.com.br/a-verdade/)