the turn: from fear to faith

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)