What to do with Fear

Originally posted February 18, 2010

Fear is an interesting topic. There is the question of what to do when a car comes careening around the corner and you are in the street with your kid. There's the moment your boss walks into your office with the HR director and closes the door. There's the time you are standing at the top of the mountain not realizing that you took the lift to the double black diamond run. Or the time you wake up and peek out your tent to see the cougar on the trail head. Then there's the two words that seem to always be heard on the black box recorder of every air plane disaster. How do you respond?

I've had all these things happen except the black box recorder. And I would say that the biggest challenges are not these. The biggest challenge I have encountered was when ...

1 Peter 5 says

Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. 7Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.8Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.

In all the challenges that the world tosses me, I'm able to say "God is in control. I may not like it, but He will lift me up in due time. Therefore, I will trust him."

But when I was at my worst it wasn't a worldly situation I was facing. It was when I got the faith kicked out of me by my own church leadership. This was as evil and painful of an experience as I have gone through. It certainly made me realize how much faith we put in leadership rather than in God. And it knocked me out of Christian service for about two years.

When I compare this to the "time out" that other Bible characters faced, this is nothing. How long did Joshua and Caleb have to wander around in the desert? How about Paul from conversion to ministry? God has all the time in the world to make corrections in me. I pray that I would be able to identify when the devil has had a time with me and then lean on God and his Spirit to get me back in the game.