The Bottom Line of Fear
To say that I struggle with fear feels like an understatement. As soon as I wake up in the morning, my mind races with a thousand "what ifs." Throughout my day, I'm constantly distracted by anxiety, and I'm convinced that destruction is around every corner. I'm afraid to let my guard down and accept peace for fear that I won't be mentally prepared for when one of the million traumas that I'm thinking about actually happens.
It's a struggle - one of my biggest. Every day is a battle for me as I try to rest in God and trust in His goodness. But the fear never seems to let up.
A few weeks ago God spoke to me about all of this fear. He said to me that the bottom line of fear is this: either we lose our lives, and find ourselves instantaneously before Him, or we lose something else but still have Him. The bottom line of every fear is that we are with Him and He is with us, and no matter what we lose we will never lose Him.
The more I thought about what God was telling me, I realized that every fear we have stems from the two categories that He had said - either we're afraid for ourselves to be lost (anything involving our own death), or we're afraid that we're going to lose something else that's in our life (be it a person, a job, security, comfort, or whatever else). I realized that fear is a self-centered thing. Fear shrinks our view until we can only see from the narrow perspective of what we want.
In all honesty, when God told me all of this, I wasn't very encouraged. Instead I thought "well God, You've made a great point, but You haven't given me any guarantee in regard to specific situations. You haven't promised me that the things I fear won't happen." I wasn't encouraged as I should have been, but I did learn that there is a big picture and there is a small picture, and I've learned that I'm afraid of the small picture - and I'm sure that most other people are as well. God didn't give me any guarantees about specific fears or situations, but He gave me a promise for the bigger picture because it's more important.
I may not yet be at the place of focusing on the bigger picture and trusting God to take care of the smaller picture, but I know that God will bring me there - and I know that He can bring you there too. Fear prevents us from trusting that God is ALL that we need - but He is. And I am convinced of His goodness enough to know that if there was something else aside from Himself that we needed, He wouldn't take that from us either. Fear may provide us with an opportunity to not trust God, but it also provides us with an opportunity to go deeper and deeper into our desperate need for God. And the more we delve into our need for God, the less we need those small picture situations to work out just the way our fear told us they had to.
It's a struggle - one of my biggest. Every day is a battle for me as I try to rest in God and trust in His goodness. But the fear never seems to let up.
A few weeks ago God spoke to me about all of this fear. He said to me that the bottom line of fear is this: either we lose our lives, and find ourselves instantaneously before Him, or we lose something else but still have Him. The bottom line of every fear is that we are with Him and He is with us, and no matter what we lose we will never lose Him.
The more I thought about what God was telling me, I realized that every fear we have stems from the two categories that He had said - either we're afraid for ourselves to be lost (anything involving our own death), or we're afraid that we're going to lose something else that's in our life (be it a person, a job, security, comfort, or whatever else). I realized that fear is a self-centered thing. Fear shrinks our view until we can only see from the narrow perspective of what we want.
In all honesty, when God told me all of this, I wasn't very encouraged. Instead I thought "well God, You've made a great point, but You haven't given me any guarantee in regard to specific situations. You haven't promised me that the things I fear won't happen." I wasn't encouraged as I should have been, but I did learn that there is a big picture and there is a small picture, and I've learned that I'm afraid of the small picture - and I'm sure that most other people are as well. God didn't give me any guarantees about specific fears or situations, but He gave me a promise for the bigger picture because it's more important.
I may not yet be at the place of focusing on the bigger picture and trusting God to take care of the smaller picture, but I know that God will bring me there - and I know that He can bring you there too. Fear prevents us from trusting that God is ALL that we need - but He is. And I am convinced of His goodness enough to know that if there was something else aside from Himself that we needed, He wouldn't take that from us either. Fear may provide us with an opportunity to not trust God, but it also provides us with an opportunity to go deeper and deeper into our desperate need for God. And the more we delve into our need for God, the less we need those small picture situations to work out just the way our fear told us they had to.
"Every good and perfect gift is from above,
coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights,
who does not change like shifting shadows."
James 1:17
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