As I was enjoying the serenity of my Morning Pages time spent with God, expressing a litany of challenges and troubles that were besieging my mind in that moment, the above thought flashed across my mind. It took me by surprise to say the least. It’s not easy to admit that many of the difficulties we face come as a result of our own fear playing out in a thousand different circumstances in our lives. But, there it sat like a glittering, brilliant diamond offering the promise of a better way to live. The trouble with fear is that it is often hard to discern in our minds and the longer it has been there driving us and assaulting us, the more we won’t be able to see it. Often when I write about the detriment of fear, people’s minds go directly to abject terror or physical things that may scare them. However, fear is infinitely more subtle than that. Fear, once it gains access to your mind, hides out there reproducing itself like a virus. Bad, wrong, long engaged in habits of thought ensure its continuance. And, like anything you do habitually without thought, it becomes invisible to your conscious mind. All error (of which fear is numeral uno) once introduced works in this fashion. So, if you find yourself living a half life or stuck in some perpetually unhappy ground hog day, fear is likely the culprit, though you would swear otherwise. No one is exempt from its clutches and no one can really escape its grasp without divine intervention from God in some capacity. Alone you and I are no match for the stealth and subtlety of God’s archenemy, yet God or Papa as I like to call Him, sees all and knows exactly what is the true cause of our difficulties and as such is most willing to help us finally see it for ourselves. Indeed, what would your life look like if you had no fear?
Fear has been plaguing mankind all the way back to the first man Adam immediately following doing the one thing God told him not to do. Fear did not exist before that fateful day. Adam’s fear was not the direct result of his disobedience, but rather his consideration of the possibility of losing favor with God. Before his disobedience Adam never entertained such a thought. Fear works in similar fashion right to this very day. Fear is always based on ignorance or wrong teaching. The enemy plays on things we do not know especially in the spiritual realm. Many people are ignorant concerning God’s unchanging love and provision for mankind and as such are simply no match for the endless accusations and threats the adversary perpetually throws their way. Others have been taught incorrectly by preachers and teachers and parents and friends and are ever wary of the so called whimsical and capricious nature of God leading to fear about what He might allow or worse afflict them with in their lives, usually based on their own perceived wrong behaviors. Both ignorance and wrong teaching produce the same result – fear. Fear is believing but in reverse. Instead of believing God for the good results He promised, fear expects and seeks out a negative result. And if a person looks for the bad long enough, it surely arrives. In this way fear hinders and thwarts our lives. It stops us from taking the actions we need to take. It looks only for trouble and finds it. How many things are done by people with fear as their hidden and unknown motive? As nothing can come from corn but corn, nothing can come from fear but difficulty. Fear allows the enemy entree into our lives. Where we fear and when we fear we tie God’s hands. It is never that God doesn’t want to help us, but rather that our own fear retards our efforts. We are asking Him for one thing while expecting another thing. Fear always results in unbelief and it’s our own unbelief that negates the promises of God. What would your life look like if you had no fear?
Fear is the adversary’s greatest weapon which he wields with unparalleled skill and ability. The only way to overcome fear (and we all have it) is with God’s Word. You have to first no longer be ignorant of spiritual matters and then you have to replace wrong teaching with right teaching. Right teaching is what God says is true. Wrong teaching is what the enemy says is true. When you live in fear of calamity and disaster you are inviting it into your life. If you are afraid of losing your job and as a result losing your means to live, your fear will produce behaviors and situations that encourage it to come to pass. If you are afraid of ill-health, and who isn’t nowadays with the daily media bombardment, you will make space for the malevolent microbe to gain access to your body. Multiply this formula out a million times and it will always end the same way. Thus your number one priority next to learning about who God is and what He will do for your life, is to rid yourself of all fear. Oh, it’s not easy as we have all been thoroughly schooled on a diet of fear our whole lives. But, it is possible if you are willing to listen to and believe what God says in His Word. God will show you in detail if you really want to know. Working in your heart, He will bring things to light that you were not aware of before. He will show you where your thinking is in error and what to do about it. He will present to you another perspective, a different way to think with great patience and love for you. In the midst of a challenging time He might even say, “What would your life look like if you had no fear?”
So what would your life look life if you had no fear? Would you make the same decisions? Would you work at that same tired, unfulfilling job? Would you continue to keep silent about the things that are important to you? Would you express your love to others without fear of rejection from them? Would you spend your days in confidence seeking out blessings and goodness instead of trouble and problems? Would you finally live your life in the way you have always wanted to live it, unreserved, unabashed, unashamed? As a great philosopher once noted, everything you ever wanted is on the other side of fear. The life you dared to dream of as a child is still there for you to claim for yourself, but only after you rid yourself of fear. It isn’t that you spend your days seeking out where you might be afraid. It is refusing the fear thoughts in the first place. It is learning to reign in your thinking and taking time to get things straight once they have gone south on you. (Morning Pages anyone?) It is putting your focus on God and what He promised more than you focus on everything that may go wrong. It is refusing to let the circumstances and appearances in life lead you to the wrong conclusion. It is taking clear action on the things that are bothering you instead of endless prayer and worry. Nothing wrong with prayer of course, but believing without action is dead! You don’t have to jump out of a plane to prove you are not afraid, instead you can remain in the plane without fear of it going down. You don’t have to go around challenging everyone, but instead learn to not fear being challenged and respond without fear. At the end of the day, fear is a gigantic ruse being played out on the minds of men from an opponent he can neither see nor clearly discern. God is that clarity and He will be that for you. What would your life look like if you had no fear?
God loves you (and me) very, very much. He is light and in Him is no darkness at all. You can depend on Him with every facet of your life. He will never lead you astray. Never. Instead He will make straight your paths and lead you up and out of whatever you got yourself caught up in. He wants the best for you. He wants to demonstrate His love for you by making your life a blessing and a joy. And at times, He will show you what your problem really is in a way that you can hear and understand without fear. What would your life look like if you had no fear? I’m sure you would like it.
Just some good thoughts…