Fear is a liar. Fear will tell you all of the things that could go wrong. Fear will tell you all the reasons you shouldn’t do something. Fear will tell you anything it can to paralyze you. It whispers lies in our ears when we are eating our breakfast, taking our kids to school or lying in bed at night as sleep eludes us.
So often instead of ignoring those lies, we give them room to grow. We water them with our agreement. We fertilize them with our words. We give them sunlight by rearranging our lives to accomodate our fears.
Yet what is it that we could be missing out on because we have given fear control of our world?
A week from this moment I will be on a plane headed to Kolkata, India. I’ve wanted to go to India for over a decade and this trip was pretty much dropped in my lap. It will be a dream fulfilled.
When I first decided to go on the trip a tiny seed was planted in my heart. A seed that was really more of a feeling than a thought—just a bit of uncertainty mixed with a twinge of fear of the unknown. Until a couple weeks ago when I began to water my fears.
They quickly grew to full-grown fears. I’m talking worst-case scenarios all the way around. I’m not generally a fearful person but in these uncertain times of earthquakes, fires, hurricanes and terrorism I began to make a mental list of all the things that could go wrong in a foreign nation, so very far from the safety of home. It began with simple fears of missed flights, turbulence and then on to plane crashes, rooted in past fears I had identified myself with years ago. Then it progressed to the fear of contracting some terrible disease, terrorist attacks and being abducted and trafficked. I actually spent wasted time Googling typhoons and other weather phenomena and wondered if I should risk it (insert face-palm emoji). I covered it all.
In retrospect, it sounds was crazy. I can see now that I wasn’t even thinking clearly. But this is what fear does to us. It guides us down the path to crazy before we even realize it!
We feed our fears and they give birth to anxiety.
They are best friends, aren’t they? Fear and anxiety. Anxiety disorders are now becoming even more common than depression in our nation. Many of us live in a near constant state of anxiety, often based in fears we didn’t even realize we had.
We’ve worn fear like a garment for so long that we no longer know where it ends and we begin. And so we opt for the warm familiarity of fear and anxiety over the promise of peace that comes when we brave the waters of uncertainty and risk trusting that God really is bigger than our fears.
We want to live lives of meaning. We want God to use us in great ways. What if He’s giving us opportunities to do so, yet we don’t recognize them because they come wrapped in the very things we fear? What if the qualification for fulfilling our God-given dreams is facing our fears yet we are so bound by them that we won’t even consider it? What if it’s not our inadequacies, incompetencies or insufficiency that stops us, but our fear?
We shrink our lives to the size of our fears.
This is evidence we are not fully trusting God. If He is the one calling us out on the waters we can be sure he won’t let us drown. If we don’t really believe that though, we’ll never get out of the boat.
In her study “Proven,” Jennie Allen says “We will never kill our fears; we are called to walk on water—and to do so boldly despite our fears. What are you afraid of? Face your fear today with a boldness that can only come from an assurance that though you are not enough, he is enough for everything you face!”
Do we really believe that Jesus is more powerful than death–that even the grave couldn’t keep him? If so, why do we allow ourselves to live with the belief that he is not enough for the things we face everyday?
Why don’t we trust that he will take care of our relationships, children, jobs, and everything else we tend to worry about? Even in those worst-case scenarios we imagine I have watched Jesus give strength and peace to those who decide to truly trust him. I have seen him pull beauty from the ashes. I watched him give peace that passes our understanding– peace that shouldn’t be present based on the circumstances. I’ve experienced joy drip off my own life like oil during some of the most difficult times.
He has enough of everything we need. He is enough.
As I prepare for my upcoming trip now, I am no longer feeding my fears by imagining worst-case scenarios. I am not letting fear paralyze me or shrink my world. I’m aware now that when fear stops whispering and starts shouting that God must have somethng pretty awesome up his sleeve and I’m not going to let fear talk me out of it.
Radiant women do not hide behind their fears, but face them boldly. We remind ourselves that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but power love and a sound mind (not a crazy one!) Give God an opportunity to shine through you by refusing to allow your fears to hold you back from all that God has created you for.
-Danielle
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