My, how I have run to escape her, this thing called Fear, for nearly all of my life. I was introduced to her as a child: the blunt force, cold isolation, rancid stench of it’s presence in the room, as if it had only recently roomed with death before turning me to its prey. A devilish beast known to play with it’s food, leaving the hunted paralyzed and shaken but still alive. Fear. Fear of fear. The cycle that infects a lifetime of otherwise divine potential.
The more I hid from all of my fears the more creative she became. She’d strike and pierce my side or my heart, inflict my thoughts and my dreams; and though her presence was known, I could not see her though I tried. I saw instead anger, depression, rage, anxiety, abandonment, embarrassment, even laughter on the strangest of occasions. I saw desperation to protect myself, guard my heart, run, fight, hide. But it was her, I am sure. Fear, masked in my outburst, demanding I take control of everything or my fate would be the grave. Or worse, loneliness.
While she distracts you from awareness and leads you to your darkest emotions, how quickly she will work upon your heart and mind. Silencing God. Convincing you of great personal afflictions. Replacing your self image. Holding you back and tying you down. Fear is the great illusionist. An instinct for survival that secretly desires to be so much more. An irony that survival can be worse than death when consumed by her spirit. Fear needs to be fed and her appetite is endless. The pain of loss of flesh leads to coping and coping is our greatest temptations of false comfort when it is fear that has instructed us all these years.
Fear wears a thousand masks. Yet all of fear dies a thousand deaths when illuminated by truth. Love can never, ever, be received in a state of fear. That is why God did not create us in a spirit of fear, but one of strength, and power, and self-discipline. God hears us and he knows our fears. But we cannot hear him when we are consumed by it. Every prayer must start with an honest confession of our fears, a request to see ourselves as God sees us in that moment: fear will run and hide from the light shown in the truth. And the truth is that God makes each of us in his image. So that when we are weak, his strength is made perfect. He calls me Bold. And I rarely feel so, but when I need it most he says it out loud. You are bold. Because in your weakness you embraced me, you were brave, and you will have my strength.
“This is my command- be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9
