What Are You Afraid Of?

"Fear can keep us up all night, but faith makes one fine pillow." ~ Annoymous

Have you ever laid in bed thinking about all you did wrong that day? Maybe you should have paid a bill. Maybe you should have not said something to a friend. Maybe you should have spent less time watching television and instead been in your Bible longer. Maybe Psalm 4:8 comes into mind when you think of this scenario.

"In peace I will lie down and sleep,
    for you alone, O Lord, will keep me safe."

Yeah, like I practice that verily well. I need to, I'll admit. Or are you more of the person, like me, who thinks about everything they have to do the next day and how they are going to squeeze it all in. Eat. Bible time. Workout. Eat. Run to the store. Drop my sister off at work. Run to another store. Come home. Work. Eat. Come home. Sleep. I don't feel it's painfully busy, but sometimes I fear the little things to come in a day. Like last night.

11:44 pm on my phone's clock and I am still working out thoughts.

One thing that I struggle with is anxiety. I have suffered from it off and on since I was in middle school. The thing that stirs me away from worry is when my view of God is right. When I pray to Him, I am thankful and still present the bad stuff in my life I wish for Him to change. When I do not have much to do, I can be seen getting into His word. The burden I carry is for people to come to know Christ as Savior. Fear is no part in the equation of my life.

When my fear is part of my life, it is because I haven't been walking with God the way I should be. I don't see Him for who He really is. Whether it be depression in my teen years before I was saved or panic attacks I started to experience two or three years ago, it is higher degree of response for which my body likes to tell me something is not right.

I can recall so vividly the times I have felt faint or shaken. Almost like the feeling you get when you give blood and you cannot sit there without seeing colors. I laid their in bed recalling those times, thinking to myself what I can do when I am in those situations and it seems like I am about to fall over. Maybe it was because I had just felt that way the same day when I was out with a friend. I don't know what it was that set off the trigger in my mind to start panicking, but I knew from before that I had already set it in my mind that I was going to have a panic attack. Call me crazy, but it's true, and I reveil in that revelation because now I am trying to counteract my thought pattern that has led me here. And believe or not, the phobias and fears we carry are things we have already set in our minds to be worthy of our dreaded emotion of fear. 

Take a person who is afraid of snakes. At one point in their life either they had a bad experience with a snake, saw a snake and thought it looked freaky, or just never has seen anything like a snake before, therefore they don't know how to handle it when they see one. With those three options, the person has already set in their mind after a while that they will be afraid of what they do not understand. I doubt they understand how to hold a snake, how to keep a poisonous one from attacking, how to keep it at a distance, and so forth. The thoughts that run through their mind when they face their fear is to tense up, scream, run, or just let anxiety set in and devour them.

That leads me to my question for you, "What are you afraid of?"

I think by now, my fear is fear is itself. I conquered some fears involving small ones like roller coasters, public speaking, and giving blood. Bigger ones perhaps are the situations I never expected to happen, such as meeting with someone who I hoped never to see again because they hurt me or the time I apologized for my reactions to a childhood friend who bullied me. They are humbling. And they make us all faint at the knees. Some might make us what to scream. I think all of them made me want to scream. Knowing I fear fear itself, I am learning the only remedy is my relationship with Christ.

I had this revelation the other day and I wanted to share with you. 

Did anyone ever suffer as much as Christ did? To fight off temptations to the point of never sinning (can you think of the last time you fought against a sin so hard and yet failed? Hard, isn't it?), to see beloved family members who didn't believe who he was, to see his disciples doubt him, to know the depths of sin, to know he could be up in heaven with his Father when he was down here on earth being ridiculed and mocked for his teachings, and then to finally die the most brutal death imaginable that inflicted shame, hate, pain, and torture on its victims-- crucifixion. Jesus had to suffer so that we could be free from our sins. Our sins are far too numerable to obtain in our minds, which is why God will always be working on us in this lifetime (Philippians 1:6).

When Christ suffered, he saw every fear we could ever face. To his bloody death, they went with him, but when he rose from the grave, we see that Christ without the shame or humiliation that fear can give. We see a glorified Christ who conquered death. Who conquered any fear that the human race is afraid of. Our fears are not the phobias we carry or the intensity of how disturbing a situation can be. It is the aftermath we will have to live with we fear. The fear of regret, shame, pain, or even death. Yet Christ showed how obedience to God can lead to blessings beyond comprehension. The salvation of the whole world in the sufferings of Christ.

If there is one thing I want you to walk away with today, that is our fears are not the fears we truly carry. They are the indicators of what we are afraid of living outside of Christ. If our hope and security is found in Christ's resurrection, there is no room for fear. There is no fear in God, in fact it casts out fear (1 John 4:8; 4:18). When we live life fearlessly, imagine what God will do with us as the church body. When we refuse to be controlled by our fears. Having the right view of God. What will we be able to do today?

I don't say this enough, but thank you for reading. I pray that the Lord will use this note to help you face fears head on and get a right perspective of Him if you need to change a few things. I know I need to, and never be discouraged because we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus. He will have us carry out His plans. Just give it some time and we will work things through when we rely on Him, His Word and communication with Him, to carry us through the days ahead.