909) I was listening to a podcast the other day, and the narrator asked the hypothetical question, If you could know the future ahead of time, would you want to? As these words worked their way around my brain, I conclude that, no; I don’t want to know what is going to happen ahead of time. Despite this, the fear of the unknown is something which plagues me regularly.

As I read Luke 8:26-39, the subject of fear arises again. Here we have a demon-possessed man who is being horribly controlled by a legion of demons. In Jesus’ day, a legion referred to an army of about 6,000 men. Whether this shows thousands of demons possess this man, I do not know. Jesus casts out the demons. They possess a herd of pigs and the pigs rush off a cliff and drown.

The next thing this passage says is when the people see this man who was possessed, healed and in his right mind, they were afraid. I think it’s interesting that it does not say in this passage that the people were afraid of the man when he was possessed. Yes, maybe this detail was left out in this account, but it makes me think of how often I am afraid of things I do not understand. This seems to be true of these people when they see this man, calm.

A lot of times, I am afraid because I do not understand something. Demystifying this could help, but there are some situations where we just have to trust God understands and is “holding it all together” for us. God loves us deeply and we know that Perfect love drives out fear. (1 John 4:18).

We do not need to fear the unknown or things we do not understand because, to God, there is no unknown and he understands all.