I know that every person has fears and that I am no exception. I have small silly fears like being afraid of spiders and life altering ones like dying by drowning or in a fire. What I did not know however, is that I was fearful of things that affected my daily life and how I lived. If you would have asked me a few years ago what I was afraid of, I would have told you nothing really and I really believed that. However, as I have worked on learning about myself by asking God to search me and show me, Jesus has overturned many things in my heart and mind that stood in the way of my spiritual life with Him. One of those things is lots of fears I never knew existed or that impacted my daily life.

I’ve learned that things happen in our lives as we grow up and get older and fears can slowly begin to creep in. As I grew up I felt like I didn’t really fit in with others and would get teased and I became afraid of what people thought of me. Life often has felt really unstable, so I became fearful of the unknown. I am afraid of being alone, or being abandoned or rejected and my heart being hurt so bad I can never recover. Fearful of my husband getting in an accident, having a fatal illness, being incapacitated or passing away suddenly and me having to pick up all of the pieces. Scared I may have to bury a child. Worried that I may never talk to my daughter again. Afraid to pray because God may not answer those prayers the way I so desperately desire, my will. Ultimately I became fearful of any outcome I couldn’t control and somewhere along the way of life, as things didn’t turn out the way I thought they ‘should’, I began to lose my trust in God.

As life was not the way I imagined, or the outcome that I thought it should be, my list of fears grew. With each passing day these fears began to drive more and more of my behavior. I began to learn ways to manage those fears to keep them at bay by trying to control every outcome. My mind was constantly thinking, spinning and scheming to have things the way I believed they should go. I worked hard to pull all the strings and keep all the balls in the air, which is exhausting. I planned in my head based on what I thought might happen or what others would do, trying to guarantee my will and my way. I thought through my words carefully and practiced conversations, but people never responded the way I thought they would. The longer I allowed my fears to drive my behavior and desire to control, the more frustrated I became because things rarely went the way I planned. People are unpredictable and life is uncertain.

While I knew these things in my head, I am not sure I realized the extent of my fears that controlled me and that they were rooted in my beliefs. As my fears have been exposed, I have seen a light shining on every fear as a flag saying this is a space where you lack trust in God. They expose doubts of God’s goodness, uncertain that He is always with me, and ultimately expose my pride that I think I can do it better. Trusting in God with all of my heart should leave me feeling confident that I will be okay no matter what; however, I am human. My human heart longs so much to be in the driver’s seat of life, wanting every day to be a peaceful beautiful landscape where there is no pain and no storms. I think we long for this peaceful perfection because He has put the hope of heaven in our hearts. We are eternal beings whose desire is for God’s original intention for humanity. So we work ourselves to the bone in an attempt to experience that beauty now. But this is earth, not heaven and so we must live in the tension of what is to come, and the only way to experience peace here is to stop striving and holding on. It’s time for me to start accepting and letting go, trusting God fully with every outcome. 

As my fears have been illuminated, I can now see how they indicate places where I need to admit my lack of trust in God. I can see now how my life, my choices and faith have been hijacked by my fears. They have kept me trapped in a space of control and unable to live a life full of joy and peace as God intends for me. However, for me to be free of those fears, I have to be able to see them, acknowledge the crippling hold they have over me and be willing to lay them down. After all, fear and faith can’t live in the same house because God’s perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18) as I fully trust Him in every area of my life.

Practice For Today

As much as I desire to trust God completely in everything, I also acknowledge that I am human and fears will crop up in my life. I must be willing to have God reveal those fears and admit them to Him, asking for forgiveness for my lack of trust. With that acknowledgement, I can make the choice that I would like to lay down those fears at the foot of the cross, being willing to completely let them go. I don’t have a choice that fears crop up as part of my humanity; however, I do have a choice what I do with them. Today I choose to ask God to show me where there are lingering fears in my heart and mind and realize that sometimes revelation comes from really hard and difficult experiences in my life.

2 Timothy 1:7 NKJV     For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

Psalm 34:4 NKJV    I sought the LORD, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears.

John 16:33 NIV    “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”