Fear Is Just A Bully

Lately I've been out-running a monster. It's teeth are sharp and sink into the flesh of my soul. Every time I think about the what ifs I can feel it's hot breath.

Maybe in the dark you wonder, as I do, if the sting and ache of giving birth really is easier than the raising of the young ones. What if parts get broken that can't be fixed. What if little arms eager now for a hug stop hugging, or hug the wrong person, or fall still in illness. The black hole of what ifs could drown a mother's heart.

And then God's call to follow him, in hazy moments, looms like a mountain, bigger than Everest ever was. What if my heart can't contain the pain I find where he leads, or bursts from the love. What if I'm haunted by the blue eyes of the little boy lying in his crib, forever? What if I fail. At what, I'm not even sure.

The foul breath of "not enough" stalks me when I scroll through Pinterest. (I stopped watching the news years ago because I knew red eyes lurked behind headlines, waiting to consume me.) But it's there, down grocery isles, and in magazines, behind Facebook posts, I feel it's hot breath.

The stench of Fear, and his brother Failure, wafts around me at night as I try to sleep. 

Why? I say I believe God is who he says he is and will do what he says he'll do. But I doubt myself. 

Is redemption more powerful than the brokenness, forgiveness weightier than the chains, will he keep his word even to one such as me? Have you ever asked yourself those questions? 

And then the darkness fades and I read words that swell my eyes with tears and shape my lips into a yes.

Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death. God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn’t deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all...So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? ~ Romans 8:1-4, 31 The Message

Did you just fall a little bit more in love? If that doesn't take care of every fear and what if I don't know what possibly could. I've known, but I'm learning anew, that looking at every situation, every person, every weakness through Jesus changes everything. 

When the teeth of fear sink into our hearts Jesus is the only antidote. Ask your fears "is there anything, ANYTHING, else God wouldn't gladly and freely do for me, the one he loves, the one who's trusting him?" And of course the answer is no. He's given everything already, there's nothing left to hold back. 

Play the what if game. What if the job is lost, the child is ill, the friendship ends, the money runs out, the dream's too big, the adoption drags on? Nothing happens, because nothing can separate us from the Love of our life, our Jesus! Nothing. 

Whew, I needed to hear that! Maybe you did too. Fear is just a bully with little ammunition and no power, because we belong to Jesus.

 

So go face your day, your life, unafraid. And the next time I whimper in fear, remind me fear is just a bully. I'll remind you too!