Living Courageously: You Can Face Anything, Just Do It Afraid (4 page)

Satan wants our joy because it is our strength (see Nehemiah 8:10). He attacks with fear in order to steal the joy that Jesus has provided for us. He also uses the same tactic to steal our peace. Fear leaves us worried and anxious and can even produce illness if it is permitted to linger for long periods of time. Most fearful people are also unhealthy people. They have many weaknesses like weak stomachs, weak backs, weak determination, and weak minds. They are easily upset emotionally and enjoy very few emotionally stable days.

Whether you have been a fearful person or not, I am hopeful that making you aware of how Satan works will energize you to resist him like never before. God’s Word instructs us to “watch and pray,” and it is good advice. Watch your thoughts, pay attention to what your emotions are doing, how you’re feeling, and what decisions you are making. If you are sensing the beginning of anything that seems the least bit ungodly or that will diminish you in any way, pray immediately and resist in the power of God.

Fear is not from God, but it is from Satan and it is designed to prevent, diminish, and torment. I often say that “fear is the master spirit that Satan uses to do his dirty work.” Watch out for fear and face it with boldness and confidence in God.

We all have a deep desire to be needed, useful, and productive, and to have a good effect on the lives of other people and the world we live in. This is a godly desire and should be pursued through faith. Satan of course wants to make us ineffective, and
he can be successful if we give in to the spirit of fear. Many times we don’t share our faith with others due to fear. At other times we don’t participate in something due to the fear of being rejected or failing. Fear holds us back, but faith urges us forward. Faith says, “Step out and try,” but fear says, “Don’t try because you will make a fool of yourself.”

We will feel fear, but we can trample on it and leave it in the dust as we press forward in God. The psalmist David admitted that he felt fear and he said,

You can be assured that fear will present itself to you at the start of anything you attempt to do that will benefit you or anyone else. At least it will until you are so well advanced in walking by faith that fear’s threats only sound like a faint noise in the background. I can honestly say that I am not hindered by fear very much at this point in my walk with God, but I have to be ever-ready to confront it. People ask me if I feel fear when I stand in front of an auditorium filled with people to speak, and I can honestly say that I don’t, but there was a time when I did.

There was a time when I had to make a decision to let fear rule, or to rule fear. Don’t let fear make you ineffective. If you do, you will live with many regrets over the things you wish you would have done, but never did. The only way to avoid regret is to take action when an opportunity presents itself. It is better to have tried and failed than not to have tried at all.

Don’t accept the lie that you are just a timid person, or that “fearful” is just your personality or the way that you are. Some
people may be more naturally bold than others are, but everyone can be effective and do amazing things in their lives if they will walk in faith and follow God. It helps us to resist fear if we are certain that Satan is the source of it. If we believe it is just the way we are, then we will accept it and sink into a low level of living that is not God’s will. Godly aggression is the key to effectiveness. We can’t even be effective in conquering daily chores if we don’t attack them with an aggressive attitude.

Always lean on God and depend on His grace (undeserved favor) to make you victorious in your fight against fear. God is your deliverer! Know that God loves you, that He is for you, and He is always with you, and then go forward and don’t look back!

When individuals are being attacked with fear or phobias of any kind, they need not try to fight the battle on their own. They
can put their faith in God and trust that He will give them victory. The enemy may come against us one way, but God’s Word says that he will flee before us seven ways (see Deuteronomy 28:7). No matter what your battles in life may be, I urge you not to ever try to fight them on your own. God will fight for you if you ask Him to.

Definitions of phobias are abundant.
Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary
says they are an exaggerated, usually inexplicable and illogical fear of a particular object, class of objects, or situation.

The Mayo Clinic defines phobias as an overwhelming and unreasonable fear of an object or a situation that poses little real danger.
¹

Unlike a brief anxiety most people feel when they give a speech or take a test, a phobia is long-lasting, causes intense physical and psychological reactions, and can affect your ability to function normally at work or in social settings.

Although definitions are plentiful, they vary somewhat. Most of them do say that the phobias and the behavior they cause are an abnormally fearful response to a danger that is imagined or irrationally exaggerated.

The list of phobias is never ending because it is ever expanding. There are phobias that people deal with today that were unheard of twenty-five years ago, or even just a few years ago. We must understand that Satan is very creative in his methods of torment. Once a new phobia is publicized, we then hear of more and more people being tormented by the same problem. Things that we never heard of are now widespread. For as many situations as you can imagine, there is a phobia for each one. There are hundreds
of phobias listed online. The most recent online searches report that there are over 500.

1. People
   (One quarter of the population reports excessive fears of at least one social situation, with public speaking fears topping the list.)
   
2. Animals
   
3. Heights
   (More than 20 percent of adults report having had an irrational fear of heights.)
   
4. Agoraphobia
   (Typically involves a fear of public places, open spaces, or traveling. When it’s severe, people can become housebound—literally trapped by fear.)
   
5. Claustrophobia
   
6. Flying
   
7. Blood/Injury/Infections
   
8. Water/Drowning
   
9. Storms (thunder and lightning)
   
10. Being in a crowd
    

1. Fear of vegetables
   
2. Fear of tight clothing
   
3. Fear of buttons
   
4. Fear of clowns
   
5. Fear of knees
   
6. Fear of butterflies
   
7. Fear of flutes
   
8. Fear of losing mobile phone connectivity
   
9. Fear of a specific place
   
10. Fear of phobias
    

Here are a few others I have heard of from various sources: The fear of beautiful women, the fear of being touched, the fear of drafts or airborne diseases causing people to wear masks in public, the fear of seeing one’s own reflection in glass, fear of constipation, the moon, the sunlight, birds or other flying objects, the fear of sitting down, and of course there are fears of every animal one might imagine. The more of these lists I read, the more angry I become at Satan who is the source of all fear, and the more determined I am to see people find freedom.

I would like to say up front that I don’t claim to have the clinical or medical answers to problems such as these phobias present, but I do know some spiritual things that I believe will help. I am not a psychologist or a psychiatrist, but I do know God’s Word and have decades of experience in watching it set people free. Many times I have witnessed God’s Word and power setting people free from addictions and phobias who had gone through many years of counseling and various treatment programs to no avail. I will offer the help I believe I am qualified to give, and should you need other help, please seek it out. And above all, please do not give up, because God is able and willing to help you. Hope is one of the most powerful forces on Earth. As long as you have hope, the door is open for change.

When a seed is planted, it takes a while before it has long and strong roots. Should the seed be dug up and discarded before it has opportunity to take root, there would never be any fruit from it. There are good seeds and bad ones, things we would want to get rooted in our lives and things that we would not want to get rooted. When we experience a thought, an emotion, a behavior, or in this instance, a fear that we don’t want to become a permanent fixture, the best thing to do is resist it at its onset. Be aggressive in confronting it and firm in your decision not to give in to it. Always remember that the longer you let something linger, the longer it will take to get rid of it.

If someone makes me angry and I deal with my anger immediately, refusing to let it linger, I am normally able to move past it right away; however, if I hang on to it for a few days, then I find I have a bigger fight on my hands when I want to say good-bye to it.

This theory of resisting at the onset will only be helpful when new fears present themselves. I am sure many of you have ones that are already deeply rooted in your life, but new ones are always trying to gain an entrance. Beware and resist them at the onset. Even if you must resist them several times, do so. Don’t ever merely submit to fear without a fight. But when you fight fear, always remember to fight in God’s power and not your own.

Since phobias are defined as “unreasonable” fears, it may seem odd for me to suggest that we examine them with reason and logic, but I do believe this must be done as part of the freeing
process. With God’s help, we can attempt to be reasonable about an unreasonable fear. For example: I once heard of a woman who had struggled with being overweight most of her life. She eventually had a child and was so fearful that the child would grow up and be overweight that she began exercising the baby’s little arms and legs daily while the baby was still in the crib. A bit of rational common sense would have shown her that exercising the infant’s limbs would not in any way affect the child’s weight later on in life.

Some disabling fears are the result of a traumatic event that took place sometime in a person’s life. The natural tendency is to fear that whatever happened will happen again, so we put up all of our defense mechanisms in order to never have to experience that thing again. Whatever happened caused pain, but fearing it will happen again keeps the pain fresh in our minds. Actually, statistically speaking, if something happens to a person once, like their house being robbed, then they are less likely to ever have it happen again. I know that is merely logic and probably doesn’t soothe anyone’s emotions, but it is true—and realizing that may help somewhat. We may think that we are protecting ourselves from a reoccurrence of something unpleasant through fear, but we are only tormenting ourselves. And the truth is that fearing it wouldn’t prevent it from happening anyway. We would be better off spending our energy praying and trusting God!

The apostle Paul wrote that the mind of the flesh is sense and reason without the Holy Spirit (see Romans 8:6). We are called to live a life of faith, and that often has nothing to do with logic. God leads us from our spirit, not from our head. The person who relies too much on their intellect finds it very difficult to believe in and have an intimate relationship with God. Although sense and reason without the Holy Spirit is not a good idea, I believe
that sense and reason (common sense)
with
the Holy Spirit is a very good idea. As we pray about the things in our lives for which we need answers, God will lead and guide us through His Holy Spirit. He often reveals simple and very practical things that we can do to help us in our situation. They are commonsense things that are very logical, and we should follow His advice.

I was shopping one day and purchased a small jar of skin care for my eyes. When I was paying, the clerk asked if I knew I could purchase a second jar for 50 percent off. I did not know that, and I decided it would be a good deal. Then I asked if all the products in that brand were being offered at the same sale price. She said that they were and I immediately (and I might add emotionally) went back to the items and started choosing pairs of several things. Then I took a minute and thought it over. I asked myself,
Do I really need these items? What else do I already have at home in similar products?
Then the thought came to me that other things would be on sale at another time and that I didn’t need to spend money just to think I was saving money. I made my original purchase and left. In this instance I was being reasonable and logical (I believe with God’s guidance), and it was a good thing.

Shopping is quite different from a tormenting phobia, but the principle is the same. I have learned that God’s principles can be applied anywhere we need them. The next time you recognize a fear of any kind tempting you, try talking to yourself about it a little and look at it logically and reasonably. Normally when emotion flares up, all logic disappears, but it doesn’t have to.

I recall a day 46 years ago when I spent an afternoon sitting on top of the kitchen table waiting for my husband to get home because I had captured a mouse in the bathroom and was afraid it would get out!! I can tell you that there was no logic that day at all. Had I thought about it reasonably, I could have realized
that the mouse (which was a baby) had no way or desire to harm me in the first place. Even if I saw it again, how could it actually hurt me? It had no hands to reach or turn the doorknob on the bathroom door and get out, but I sat on the tabletop (I was eight months pregnant) and waited for Dave to get home. Multitudes of women are terrified of mice, and yet these creatures have no true ability to harm us.

When Dave did come home, he untied the bathroom door (yes, I had it tied to another door with a rope) and he found the mouse under the plunger where I had trapped it. It had suffocated and lay upside down, with all fours in the air. It was a pink baby about two inches long. Fierce, indeed! Ridiculous, to say the least, but that is a good example of what unreasonable fear will do to a person if they leave their emotions unchecked.

We need to be like the 84-year-old grandmother who fiercely maintained her independence and lived alone in the old family home. Her four children lived in the same town, but she rarely called them except in emergencies. It was with some apprehension, therefore, that one of her sons drove to her house one morning in answer to her phone call. When he arrived, she said she suspected that there was a burglar in her bedroom closet, since she had heard noises in there the night before. “Why didn’t you call me last night?” “Well,” she replied, “it was late and I hated to bother you, so I just nailed the closet shut and went to bed.” That’s the kind of attitude we can have when faced with fears of all kinds. Nail the door of fear shut and go to bed in calm assurance.
⁴

We may perhaps close the door on many fears by being less emotional and applying more sense and reason in the Holy Spirit. Ask yourself,
What can possibly happen if I don’t give in to this fear
that is demanding unreasonable behavior from me?
Quite often the answer will be, “Nothing will happen.”

Lloyd Douglas said, “If a man harbors any sort of fear, it percolates through all his thinking, damages his personality, and makes him landlord to a ghost.”
⁵
In other words, he wastes his time on something that isn’t even a reality.

It is reported that 6.3 million Americans have a diagnosed phobia. Just imagine how many suffer with these crippling and unreasonable fears and keep them a secret. Statistics state that 60 percent of the things people fear will never take place, 90 percent of the things feared are considered to be insignificant, and 88 percent of things feared in relation to health will never happen.
⁶

I realize it is easier for me to be logical about these phobias because I don’t have them. I have empathy for people who suffer with these problems, and I realize that the symptoms they have can seem overwhelming. And although some of the spiritual solutions that I am offering are somewhat simple, we often find that the answers to complicated problems are simple. We look for complicated answers to complicated problems, but the simple truth of God’s Word is that He loves us, and all things are possible with Him. Come to Him in faith like a little child and believe that He can set you free.

A man who is afraid of everything dies a thousand deaths, but the courageous man dies only once. If we truly want to be free from fear, perhaps we could reason that no matter how difficult it would be to do the thing we fear, it wouldn’t be as bad as being afraid of it all of our lives.