The Deep Unknown: How to Face the Strange and Unfamiliar without Fear

“What you don’t know can’t hurt you,” the old adage goes. But, judging by what makes us nervous, most of us don’t seem to actually believe that.

This week, I attended a professional retreat that I had never been to, and I had to travel far away to do so. As the dates of the retreat approached, I found the expected anxiety and stress rising within me.

Expected, because I often feel such anxiety when I have to face anything that involves unknowns.

Sometimes, the unknown that rattles me is as simple as walking into the department of transportation to get my driver’s license renewed. It can be meeting new people whose opinion I care about (probably a little too much). Or driving through a big city I’m not familiar with can tie my stomach in knots.

Even though I’ve flown by myself a lot, and experienced all the standard elements of air travel, I still battle anxiety and nerves every time. The flight itself doesn’t bother me (unless you count concern about motion sickness), but getting through security (the worst!), finding my flight on time, securing transportation after I land, finding my hotel and event, etc.—all these things are what cause me the worse stress.

So what is this all about? It’s about fear. Specifically, these situations spark fear because they are filled with the unknown.

Your unknown situations might look different than mine, but I’m guessing you still experience this same fear of the unknown. It’s a common area of fear for most people, because familiarity is comfortable to us. Familiar is safe.

In “known” situations, we believe we’re in control, so we can relax. We’re also at ease with the familiar because we know what to expect. Only certain things are likely to happen in familiar settings and situations, and we know we can handle them—on our own.

Ultimately, I’m most at ease when I feel confident I can handle what’s going to happen on my own, even without God. That whole premise is self-delusional at its core because the truth is I can’t handle anything without God.

But the illusion of known, familiar locations and occurrences caters to my desire to be self-reliant and independently capable.

So, when I’m thrust into the unknown, with only more unknowns lining the path ahead, fear can strike.

In this most recent experience with facing the unknown and the fear it spawns, I fought the anxiety with two helpful truths that can help you, too.

1. THE KNOWN IN THE UNKNOWN

You know how much calmer you feel about facing a new situation if a friend is also going to be there?

What I usually don’t realize is that every time I encounter an unknown situation, I have a Friend Who’s also going to be there.

This truth was implanted in my heart by, believe it or not, my favorite John Wayne movie. In this film, Chisum, Wayne plays the title character of John Chisum. In a scene at the close of the movie, Chisum’s friend repeats an adage that essentially says there’s no law or God out West, where they live.

This friend’s habit is to say, “Right, Mr. Chisum?”, and Chisum often responds in the affirmative.

But this time, Chisum tells his friend he’s wrong. And Chisum then says the line that has stayed with me for many years: “Because wherever a man goes, sooner or later, there’s the law. And sooner or later, he finds out God’s already been there.”

God brought this line, and the truth it conveys, to mind as I readied for my trip. I repeated it to myself as I embarked on the journey, whenever fear of what was waiting for me ahead gripped my heart.

Whatever waited for me—at the airport, in the air, in the far away state I’d never been to—God had already been there.

What’s more, He would be there when I arrived. He’d be the best Friend I could ever want to calm my fears with His presence.

Best of all, He wasn’t just waiting for me at each of those unfamiliar destinations—He was going to go with me to them. He would be with me every step of the way as I headed into the unknown.

It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed. – Deuteronomy 31:8

2. THE UNKNOWN IS KNOWN

This realization that God is not confined to the familiar box I try to put Him in—that He knows all my unknowns—leads me to the second helpful truth.

For followers of Christ, who get to call God our “Father,” there are no real unknowns.

Because God is everywhere.

He is always with me.

…for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” – Hebrews 13:5b

He has already been wherever I’m going, He still is where I’m going, and has providentially ordained every detail of my experiences.

We know that nothing is unknown to God. But the glorious comfort in this truth is that, because I know God, nothing is truly unknown to me.

He has been there, He is there, and He will be there, in whatever new experience I face.

This is the Friend I know, the Father I trust, the Defender of unimaginable power, the Creator and Sustainer of all things.

In the midst of the unknown, He is my familiar. He makes the unknown safe.

THE DEEP KNOWN

Do you know Him? If not, I urge you to open His Word, the Bible, and start to find out Who He is in those pages. You’ll find the path to fearlessness there, too.

If you do know this God, then these two comforting truths are for you, as well. Use them to battle and defeat your fears.

Remind yourself, whenever you’re facing a frightening unknown, that it’s not an unknown.

Because the God you know has already been there.

Do new or unfamiliar situations make you anxious? How have you battled your fear of the unknown? Please share!

Photos by Riccardo Pelati, Gabriel, EMILE SÉGUIN, and Warren Wong on Unsplash. Original graphics designed by Jerusha Agen.

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Since we’re talking about unknowns today, I’m going to give away a mystery novel to one of you! Simply leave a comment below to enter the drawing for a print copy of The Unquiet Bones by Melvin R. Starr! (Giveaway ends May 26, 2019. Winner to be selected by random drawing. Winner must have continental U. S. mailing address.)

Hugh of Singleton, fourth son of a minor knight, has been educated as a clerk, usually a prelude to taking holy orders. However, feeling no certain calling despite a lively faith, he turns to the profession of surgeon, training in Paris and then hanging out his sign in Oxford.

A local lord asks him to track the killer of a young woman whose bones have been found in the castle cess pit. She is identified as the impetuous missing daughter of a local blacksmith, and her young man, whom she had provoked very publicly, is in due course arrested and sentenced at the Oxford assizes.

From there the tale unfolds, with graphic medical procedures, droll medieval wit, misdirection, ambition, romantic distractions and a consistent underlying Christian compassion.