The
past six weeks have been a wild ride. I have come face to face with my
biggest enemy – the spirit of fear. Everyone feels fear at some time, and
at some level fear is a warning of danger and should be respected. The
fear I’m talking about, however, had been prevalent in my life ever since I can
remember. And many times it dictated my steps.
It
seemed like the fear matured the older I got. From being afraid of the
dark, to fear of upsetting someone, to being alone at night, the basement,
critters of all kinds, thunderstorms, ghosts, horror movies, to being
embarrassed, as bad as this might sound – to being around mentally challenged
people, to public speaking, night terrors, crossing large bridges, to panic
attacks, to living out my worst nightmares (as in real life), to the loss of my sanity. Some of those things like public
speaking are common fears, I know. And I have faced many giants in my
life. I usually just learned to feel the fear and do it anyway. But
it was always looming over my head like a paranoia that something was just
waiting for the next opportunity to attack.
Fear
is a normal part of the human experience but this was not your normal fear. This
fear gripped my soul and I could never get completely away from it. I
suppressed it and tried to avoid it as much as I possibly could. I guess I
figured it was just a part of my personality.
But
God…
2
Timothy 1:7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear,
but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
See,
where the Scripture says “spirit of fear,” well that is simply not the same as
feeling fear when the situation would naturally call for it. A couple of
examples are if a vehicle would veer into your lane of traffic or the respect
you would give power tools while you were using them. No, I believe I had
a “spirit of fear” and once I faced it, it lost its power over me. You
may think it was nice and concise there in that one sentence, but it only took
me 56 years to achieve.
I
had attacked this thing from many angles over the years and then all roads led
to a head on collision these past six weeks. I had to once and for all
command this spirit of fear to “get out.” This meant I had to put action to my
faith and trust God, take Him at His word that “Greater is He that is within me
than he that is in the world.” I stepped out of the boat and onto the
water. I had to claim over and over that God gave me a spirit of
power, of love and a sound mind. And I claimed it (with much fear and
trembling, I might add) until the “spirit of fear” vanished.
I
have felt the fear come against me again, but it doesn’t own me anymore. It
has been evicted. I am free from it. The implications of this are
so huge that I can’t begin to fathom what this means for my future. For now, I’m
just going to pause for a bit and enjoy the refreshing. I thank God for
His faithfulness and for being everything He says He is.
