I am afraid.
I am afraid to do the wrong thing.
So I am crippled and do
nothing, or I do things with the wrong motive. And I spin around in false guilt
even when I’ve done nothing wrong.
I am afraid to fail.
So I strive and miss
the only thing that matters. I try to earn what’s already been given to me. And
I wear myself out while I do it.
I am afraid to disappoint.
So I become who you
want me to be, or rather who I think you want me to be. Or I shut myself off
from people all together.
I am afraid my brother will never know Jesus.
So I don’t go home as
often because I don’t want to face the fact that I don’t pray enough for him, I
don’t want to see the pain it causes my parents, I would rather bury the hurt
that I have no real relationship with my brother and that I don’t know how to
love him.
I am afraid to walk through watching my parents age and die.
So I deny the fact
that they are and bury myself in my own life and selfishness.
I am afraid that if people really see the real me, they won’t
love me for me.
So I put up walls that
don’t let love in or out. Or I wear this false “better” version of me.
I am afraid that they’ll love you more than me, that you’ll
love them more than me.
So I drown in comparison,
jealousy, and envy.
I am afraid of being called out, wrong, rebuked.
So I make sure to
always defend myself whenever we talk about me.
I am afraid of the unknown.
So I try to control
everything and everyone.
I am afraid to express my desires because they might not be
fulfilled.
So I settle for the
way things are rather than how God created them to be.
I am afraid that if you could hear my thoughts you’d never want
to be around me.
So I drown in lies.
The battle of the mind saps the life out of me.
I am afraid of what you will think of me if I go to a
certain church or that I will get hurt in the church again.
So I disregard the covenant
I am supposed to have with a local church body, miss out on the community I was
created to have, become a leech to different churches, don’t commit, and wind
up feeling disengaged from the Body of Christ.
I am afraid that there is some secret that I’m missing about
the Christian life.
So I become critical
of how genuine you are in your relationship with Jesus.
I am afraid that I have nothing to give you.
So I decide that I won’t
even try at all.
I am afraid to tell the lost about Jesus, for many reasons.
So I disobey the Great
Commission, focusing on sanctification rather than
others salvation (when really my sanctification should lead me to exclaim the
Good News).
I am afraid i'm afraid.
And although I may know
the truth about what I am afraid of, walking in those truths daily, now that is
a whole other story. I cannot do it in my own strength, but Galatians 2:20
tells me that Christ through His Spirit is the One living this life for me. And
if the powerful One who raised Jesus from the dead is living IN me, He can live
a life that turns fear into faith.
“We all live our
lives in the confines of fear” (Ben Howard).
But the opposite of fear is faith and “no one has such a
perfect opportunity to practice and develop faith as do those who must learn
constantly to turn fear into faith” (Hannah Hurnard).
“When [not if] I am afraid, I put my trust in You” (Psalm
56:3).
Have the courage to ask the Spirit to shed light on what frightens
you so that truth can overcome. Name your fears, call them to the front-lines of
battle. If you never face your fears, your faith will have nothing to fight,
and you will continue to be of little faith. Someone once said that "courage
is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more
important than fear." That something is faith, it is choosing to live as
though the Bible is true no matter what.
(i take no credit for this photo)