God has been teaching me alot about fear lately, through my friends, through His Word, even through Veggie Tales. He's showing me just what a hold fear has had on me and how imperative it is that I allow Him to purge it out of me. So... I just thought I'd share a little of what He has been showing me. I think I first really started noticing the overwhelming bondage of fear in my life a couple months ago, when my friends started pointing it out and tried to help me work through it. But I didn't really think I needed any help. I figured I was fine, because fear is normal and they were just overreacting (sorry, guys!). But because they were persistent in voicing their concern, and God was faithful to point out my fear in different situations, I realized I had a huge problem on my hands. I was afraid of practically everything. I was afraid to tell my friends when they hurt me. I was afraid of telling my parents when I had issues that I knew they could help me with. I was afraid of completing any task or duty for fear that I might do it wrong. I was afraid to raise my hand in class if there was a question I needed answered. I realized that these are situations that happen every single day, and that my fear was crippling me from being able to even perform normal, daily functions properly. It got to the point that I would not even do what I knew was right because I was too terrified of the possible consequences. You have probably heard that the Bible says 365 times "Do not fear". So obviously, fear is in direct opposition to God. But why? To let fear reign over you is to say that God is not bigger than whatever it is that you fear. It is saying that God can't possibly protect you in whatever circumstance you're facing, that God can't possibly heal you from whatever hurt is impending, that God can't possibly fix whatever issue you're dealing with. Fear says that you do not trust God, the omnipotent Creator of the universe, who proved His power over sin and death, the only other 2 things that we should have feared besides Him. And to not trust Him implies that you do not truly know Him. Because if you did, you would know implicitly His unshakable power. Even after I had meditated on all this for a long time, I still would not let go of my fear. I had let it become too deeply engrained in me, and I knew it would hurt to have it removed. God had to let things get really bad in my life to the point where holding onto my fear had become far more painful than having it removed. And the tipping point was when He had to use a Veggie Tales video to convict me, just a couple days ago. Never ONCE when I was little, did I actually learn anything from Veggie Tales. We were watching the story of Esther in our day care and I was so convicted by it. Esther went through some of the same fears I did (at least in the cartoon), and she made the right choice, yet I had previously reached the point where I was almost completely ok with making the wrong choice because I succumbed to my fear. Well, I was quite embarrassed that God had to use Veggie Tales on me to help me see things straight, and so I decided that I was going to start letting Him work on my fear. It's been a slow process because I still react in fear alot, but now I am willing to bring it before Him and trust Him that when I act in boldness, He will strengthen me to do so. Last night, I was reading through my Bible and I came across Psalm 27:1-3
"The Lord is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear?The Lord is the defense of my life; Whom shall I dread? When evildoers came upon me to devour my flesh, my adversaries and my enemies, they stumbled and fell. Though a host encamp against me, my heart will not fear; Though war arise against me, in spite of this I shall be confident."
This is going to sound really stupid and obvious, but it's something I hadn't really ever thought about before. I never really considered the implications of the Lord being my "light". It was just something I'd always heard. But last night, I realized just how wonderful and encouraging it is that He is our light. Light dispels darkness and reveals the unknown. All the things that I fear are revealed in His light to be small and unimportant. His light takes away my fear. That thought is incredibly freeing to me, and I hope it is to you too. Anyway, I wrote this 1) because it's been a while since I posted something, 2) because I thought it would be nice to update you on my spiritual walk, 3) because I hope that this post will encourage and build you up, and 4) so that when you see fear poking its horrid little head out in my life, that you will slap it and put it back in its nonexistent place. :)
