Fear Not: Breaking Fear Down

For those of you who do not know me, which is probably all of you, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Janna, I have been married to my husband for 13 years this past April! Together we have two girls, who are 5 & 3, and I am a follower of Christ and deeply in love with my Jesus. I was born and raised in a Christian home; to which I am extremely thankful for my story; it’s a story that is so few and far between these days and I’m thankful.  My husband compares my upbringing to that of the Cleavers from the Leave it to Beaver show….for those of you who do not even know what that show is….well I’m showing my age, and you can look it up here. Up until March 20, 2015, my life has been pretty easy. Sure there have been things where I’ve made bad choices and messed up and all those things, but nothing really major has happened in my life, until last March. 

March 20, 2015 is a day that I will never forget. It was the day I got the call from my brother that my father had passed away. You see, he had been fighting the battle of MSA for 4 years prior to the call. We knew what was imminent. We also knew there wasn’t a cure for this disease, and we knew and trusted that if God wanted my Dad home, he would take him at the right time. But you know, no matter how much you think you are prepared for something like that, you aren’t. The call was just as heartbreaking as it would have been had my dad not had a terminal illness. The hardest part for me was that I live in Virginia and my parents are in Colorado, so I had booked a plane ticket to go visit my Dad because we knew his time was short so I wanted to get out to see him again. My flight was on a Tuesday, and he passed away four days before my flight was scheduled, on a Friday. I was devastated. “I was coming to see him, I was coming to see him,” was all that I could get out between my cries and grief. Losing a loved one is something I have never experience up until this point I life. I had no context for grief or sadness like this, until that day. 

What I didn’t expect to happen in the days and weeks to follow was, again, something I didn’t have much of a context for in my life; fear. Through this process of grief, fear grabbed ahold ofme. I have never grieved the loss of someone close to me so I didn’t know what to expect when it came to the grieving process, and I certainly didn’t know that fear could or would be a part of it. For the next few months I found myself fearing death. Fearing the unknown…fearing the questions that, “Ok if I’m a follower of Christ and I KNOW there is a God, and my Dad knew Him…so that means he is WITH God…..so what is he doing!?!? Like RIGHT NOW what is he doing??”  The questions rolled around in my head over and over creating a snowball effect. I know that the Bible describes heaven as this amazing place, but my human mind could not wrap my head around it. I wrestled through that and God in all his loving kindness revealed, yet again, to me that he is trustworthy. If he can be trusted in this life, which I 100% do trust Him, then why can’t he be trusted in death too? There was no answer other than, “You can be Lord.”

So the fear of death subsided some, but manifested itself in other areas. You name it, I feared it. From being robbed, jumped, shot to death, to being in a terrorist attack, attack on my kids, my husband, friends, fear of large gatherings of people, looking for the exits, what do if this, what to do if that….on and on went my mind as it was crippled by fear. Which is understandable too because this stuff is happening more and more frequently & feels like it's getting closer and closer to me. So that in itself makes it hard to not allow fear to settle in & take up residence in my mind. 

I want to define the word fear so we know exactly what this word means as we take time today to break it down. Fear is defined in Merriam-Webster as: 

• to be afraid of (something or someone)

• to expect or worry about (something bad or unpleasant)

• to be afraid and worried

I love the last bullet point, to be afraid and worried, because yes that is exactly what I was. I was afraid of so many things, and I was worried about all the other things. You guys, I was staying in my house avoiding going to things in fear that an attack would happen when I was there! When I say I was crippled by fear, that is exactly what I was; crippled. 

Maybe for you, where you currently sit, this isn’t something you have faced. This isn’t something that you have wrestled through;to you I want to say--thank God for that! That is a blessing and one I hope you never do have to wrestle through. 

My guess though, is that many of you have been. Many of you know exactly what I’m talking about when I describe what it’s like being crippled by fear. When it has its claws so deep in you, you don’t know what is true and what isn’t anymore.  When you are avoiding things because you are afraid of….any number of things from, something bad happening, or to even just being around a large amount of people.

Maybe for you it’s the not the fear of something bad happening but it’s the fear of being vulnerable. It’s the fear of letting someone else in to your deepest thoughts. Fear that if another human really knew what went on in your mind, they would judge you, or have you committed. 

Maybe it’s the fear of being hurt by another person? Fear of trusting another person; you’ve been hurt by someone before you and refuse to allow anyone the space to hurt you again?

Maybe it’s the fear of feeling like you don’t have a purpose, not being used by God like you wished you would be? Maybe it is the fear that God would ask you to do something that is going to require a sacrifice on your part? 

Whatever fear you face today, I want to invite you on a journey as we discover what God has to say about fear, and how to navigate life through your fears. 

So join us in the next post as we take a look at Fear Not: You have a choice. 

Much love!

xo

 

 

Fear: You have a choice

For those of you just joining us, this is the first post that I have wrote that builds off a previous post. The last post we took a look at fear and broke it down…so you will want to jump down and read that one first. 

In this post I want to take a look at fear again, but bringing to light a few things, the first being, when it comes to fear—we have a choice. 

Now some of you may read that and think what? How on earth do you have a choice when it comes to fear? I didn’t know, or didn’t realize that either, until I listened to the talk Tough AsNails by Andy Stanley, the lead Pastor of North Point community Church. I would encourage you to listen to the 3 part series, he does a much better job at accurately articulating this, but I’m going to do my best in relaying what I learned through it. 

As people who follow Jesus, we are following a man’s example and striving to be just like him. That is the goal as followers of Jesus. It is important to know that Jesus, came to earth in human form. He had all the same feelings, emotions, trials, temptations as us, yet he did not sin. Jesus is the founder and the author of our faith and this man was extraordinarily bold! He was so brave. Jesus was betrayed by one of his closest friends, he was wrongly accused, he was flogged, and on top of all of that he WILLINGLY walked to the cross. For me, for you, for all of humanity—so that, we could have a way to be in eternity with God. A sacrifice had to be made and he, in his perfection, was that sacrifice. 

I’m sorry but that is a man who is braver that brave, and stronger than strong, and he more than proved that fear is optional. Can you put yourself in his shoes just for a minute…just because he was God in human form, does not mean that he didn’t feel the same things we would be feeling….heartbreak because one of his closest friends turned their back on Him (Matthew 26:31-35).  He was in anguish over what was to come as he had to face the cross (Matthew 26:36-39). He was beaten, flogged, a crown of thorns was placed on his head (Matthew 27: 27-31), and don’t think for one moment he didn’t feel the physical pain of it all. Yet, he still willingly laid down his life as a sacrifice. Was he afraid? I’m sure he was! 

From time to time you are going to have to say NO to yourself and your mind and YES to Jesus. There are going to be times when you have to actively deny yourself and what you are feeling in order to follow Jesus. Same goes with the feeling of fear—do not be afraid of that which can kill your body, but cannot kill your soul. This is a direct quote from Andy Stanley, “Uncertainty is unavoidable, but fear is optional.” Uncertainty is unavoidable, but fear is optional. There are times when fear is going to overwhelm us so much that it cripples us, but remember that if you are a Follower of Christ, you do not submit to fear, you submit to God. In these moments when fear is taking over and the walls are starting to close in on you, you have a choice. You can choose to submit yourself to the fear and allow it to take over and control you, OR you can choose to respond to Jesus’ authority. 

Hebrews 11:1-2 says, “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.”

Faith is the confidence in what we hope for, and assurance of what we do not see….that is why all of the people we read about in the Bible, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Peter, Paul all gave their lives to the mission of spreading the gospel! He believed what God said, because they had confidence in what they hope for, and they had assurance of what they didn’t see. Were there times they were filled with fear? Oh! I guarantee it! But they didn’t love their lives so much that they shrunk from death (Rev. 12:11). They faced it head on, they stood up to it, they pressed on, and they made a choice to respond to God and his authority rather than submit to their fears. They were looking forward and they were faithful…often times we look back at things and that is what makes us fearful. 

You guys, us in this generation, should be the least fearful!! We should be the MOST confident and humble, we should be the ones that are standing shouting loudly, not submitting to the fear of “what if.” 

Hebrews 12:1-3 says, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders (fear), and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer, and perfecter of our faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.” 

Consider him…who endured such opposition…because Jesus died and rose again…because he lives….we can be bold, brave, fearless, compassionate, selfless….when you no longer dread fear you become---FEARLESS! 

Jesus is our example of that and he made a choice to crush fear. He made a choice to stand firm in what he knew. Same with Paul, Peter, Timothy….in the New Testament they fixed their eyes on Jesus and they advanced the gospel with confidence. 

Guys this is our time here, right now, this is our chance to take a stand and be brave like our examples we read about. We are the stewards of our faith and it continues on with our generation, because we recognize, fear is an option! We are to consider our examples and not grow weary and loose heart, to not allow the temptation to submit to fear control us. We have to make the choice. 

Uncertainty is unavoidable, but fear is optional!

I want to wrap up with a quote by Beth Moore, "That means if you have trusted Christ as your Savior, darkness can not force you to stay. It can only harass you into believing that you belong there. You don't!"