*This post is for those battling fear. May you be encouraged.
Turn the Light On
I have a question I’d really like to ask the makers of the Command strips. Why on earth do they always have to fail at approximately 11:45 p.m.? Why can’t they stop working in the middle of the day when I am wide awake and most likely not even in the room? Speaking of wide awake, did you know that you can instantly go from sleeping soundly to more awake and alert than you’ve ever been in your life when a loud noise occurs not far from your bed? Well, my friend, you can! I can assure you that I have never been more awake than I was at 11:45 p.m. last night when the picture decided to leap from my wall, bounce off the chest, and crash to the floor.
My heart skipped a few beats when I was jolted awake and then apparently felt it must make up for lost time, so it began to race at an alarming rate. As I peered through the darkness trying to see the intruder that had come crashing into my bedroom, I wondered if I had time to grab the baseball bat I keep near my bed. While my heart continued to try to beat its way out of my chest, I quietly reached for my cell phone, intending to use it to shed light on the face of what I knew would be some terrifying monster standing ready to attack me before I could even get to my baseball bat. With trembling fingers, I pushed the button to make my phone light up so that I could face my would-be attacker.
When the light showed an empty bedroom, I wasn’t sure if I should be relieved or continue to be terrified. You see, I figured the intruder must have known he woke me up and was now trying to get out of my house. This meant that I now had to get up and check the rest of the apartment. I’m not even gonna lie to you, my friend; times like these make me wish I wasn’t a single mom and the only adult in the home. It would be really nice to be able to make someone else go investigate terrifying noises in the dark! Unfortunately, I was the only adult, so I summoned what little courage there was left in me and crawled out of the bed, ready to defend my home against the unknown intruder.
I would love to tell you that I boldly raced to meet the unknown intruder that had dared to enter our home, but I would be lying to you. I would love to describe myself walking boldly and confidently into the face of danger but the truth is that I looked a whole lot more like Barney Fife than I care to admit as I trembled my way across the bedroom floor. I was approximately four and a half feet from my bed when I made contact with the cause of the loud noises that had jolted me out of my sleep. Because I was looking elsewhere for what I just knew was going to turn out to be an escaped serial killer on the run from the law, I was not expecting to bump into a picture now lying in my bedroom floor.
Cue fright number two! When my leg connected with something on my floor that wasn’t supposed to be on the floor, I was given yet another dose of fear slash adrenaline! As I looked down and realized the cause of all the stress, I can’t say I wasn’t a little frustrated. The picture in the floor was actually a canvas painting of the ocean that I had found at a thrift store while dropping off some donations. It is a beautiful painting that isn’t that heavy, hence the reason for using command strips to hang it. The strips promised to hold a picture “up to four pounds” and this one probably only weighed maybe a pound and a half tops. But just to be on the safe side, I had used not one but three strips!
You see, I had been woken up in the middle of the night before when the command strip holding a small picture on my wall failed in the middle of the night. This wasn’t my first rodeo, friends! However, this time it was much louder, which is the reason I was fairly certain when I was snatched from my peaceful dreaming that I was about to die at the hands of a terrifying serial killer. (You know the one that had escaped from police custody and thought my apartment was the perfect place to hide! What can I say? I’m a writer; I have a very active imagination!) So now you understand why I would love to ask the manufacturers why they fail in the middle of the night instead of the middle of the day!
If that picture had fallen in the daytime, I would have been startled but not terrified and awaiting certain death! There is something about the darkness that makes things seem so much worse than they really are! Trust me; while lying there in bed, wide awake for the next hour and a half, waiting on the adrenaline to wane and allow me to go back to sleep, I had plenty of time to think. As a matter of fact, I had about a million thoughts going through my mind before exhaustion finally brought sleep to my weary body and forced my mind to shut down. And one of the thoughts was about how different things are in the dark than they are in the light of day.
There are things that scare me in the dark that would not have the same effect on me during the light of day. I guess you could say the light dispels some of the intensity of my fears. As I pondered on this, I concluded that it is because the darkness blinds us to the truth. The darkness masks what is real. In the dark, I heard only fearful noises that sent my mind racing with a million possibilities of the danger I was in and every single one of them was wrong. I was never in danger but it took shedding light onto the situation in order for me to see the truth, to see reality. Sometimes we have to turn on the light in order to distinguish between what is real and what is false.
“Then Jesus spoke to them again saying, ‘I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life’” John 8:12. Things that go bump in the night are not the only things that scare me; in fact, there are quite a lot of things that scare me. I could make you a list that I am ashamed to admit would be quite long of the things that scare me or make me anxious, but I am not going to do that. What scares me is not what is important. What is important is the fact that each of us has things that frighten us, make us nervous, or cause us anxiety. We all have our Barney Fife moments, if we were to be completely honest about it.
And the things that scare us are not always “things”. Many times, the things that frighten us most are not easily explained things like falling pictures but are more frightening things like uncertain futures, frightening medical diagnosis’s, unexpected rejections, or a million other life changing “things” that can trigger intense struggles with fear and anxiety. It is critical in moments like that that we must turn the light on and distinguish between what is real and what is false. It is in those moments that we desperately need Jesus, the Light, to help us distinguish what is true from what is false. There are many moments in life when it is understandable to experience some normal fear.
The problem is that while a certain amount of fear is normal at the onset of certain trials, situations, or problems we face, we are not to allow fear to continue. When fear threatens to overtake us in any situation, it is very important that we shed some light on the situation so that we can clearly define what the problem is and what it is not. You see, Satan has a really annoying habit of causing fear to balloon out of proportion if we allow him to. He is really good at magnifying a problem so big that he causes us to have an irrational amount of fear. God never intended us to allow fear to overtake us when we are facing difficulties in our lives. In fact, He tells us over and over again in His Word to “fear not”.
2 Timothy 1:7 makes that very clear. “For God has not given us a spirit of fear; but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” If we are overtaken by a spirit of fear, it did not come from God. That’s why I say it is so important to distinguish the truth in every situation in which we are tempted to be fearful. We must carefully analyze every situation that causes us fear and clearly define what is true and what is not true. If you are experiencing fear, then more than likely, Satan has already lied to you and is causing you to believe some things that are not true! He likes to take a stressful situation and twist it up and make it seem even more intimidating and frightening than it really is.
Something stressful arises that may or may not be a reason for us to be concerned but before you can blink an eye, the enemy has tempted us to imagine a hundred horrible scenarios that are closely followed by a heavy dose of irrational fear. If we do not immediately stop the flow of fearful thoughts the minute they begin to race through our minds, then we are in danger of losing ourselves to a big old case of the “what ifs” and we all know how that ends. We end up completely and totally overcome with fear and anxiety because we have allowed our mind to run away with us. Dear heart, when that happens it is imperative that we grab those reigns tightly and reel our minds back.
We must maintain control of our minds so that we do not lose control in moments of stress. You see, it is a lot easier to stop the thoughts before they gain control than it is to corral them once they break loose in our minds. Uncontrolled thoughts are like wild stallions that will run free and wild all over the place if we do not stop them! When we are first faced with a stressful moment and are tempted to fear, we must instantly turn on the light and speak truth to ourselves! As the old saying goes, tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth. That means that if it is not absolutely true then do not accept it into your mind. Do not accept the lies of the enemy; reject every lie he sends your way!
Take last night for example. The first thing I should have done when I heard the noise was turn the light on so I knew exactly what I was facing. I should not have hesitated, held captive by fear while I allowed my mind to race with possibilities of what had caused the noise; I should have turned the light on and found the cause right away. Had I of done that, I would have immediately seen there was no need for me to fear and I wouldn’t have had any further reason to worry. Instead, in the brief moment of my hesitation to reach for the light, I was nearly overcome with fear as I considered all the frightening possibilities racing through my mind. All of my fear was so unnecessary and a waste of time!
The minute we turn on the light, we are able to clearly see the truth; we are able to see what the problem is and are better equipped to deal with it. But in order to determine what is true and what is not, we need to have some sort of standard by which we judge our thoughts. Thankfully, we have the exact standard we need and that standard is God’s Word. The Bible is the standard by which a Christian should be judging their every thought and intention. (Please note I am talking about judging your own self not anyone else. The Bible says self-control not other control!) Between the covers of the Bible, you will find the help you need to determine whether or not the thoughts you are struggling with are true.
“For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” Hebrews 4:12. The Word of God is the tool we need to discern truth in every circumstance we face. It can help us rightly divide what is true and what is not. And that is the key to overcoming irrational fear. Irrational fear is triggered because we have lost sight of the truth and have begun to believe or fear lies. Often one of the truths that we lose sight of in moments of fear is who we are in Christ. No matter what we go through it does not change who we are in Christ!
There is no diagnosis, no rejection, and no change in our life that changes who you are in Him. No matter what we face, it does not change the fact that you are a beloved child of God. Your future is secure in Him and that is one thing you can count on as you struggle with any situation here on earth. Nothing on earth is going to change the fact that you are loved, you are cared for, and you are never alone. So, while you are struggling to define truth in any situation, please never forget the most important truth. You are His child. You are held in His arms. You are not alone. You are loved. You are more precious to Him than you could possibly imagine and He is always by your side.
The second thing we need to do when we are struggling with irrational fear is to test the thoughts running through our minds. We can do this by running them through the test found in Philippians 4:8. “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy-meditate on these things.” That’s a pretty good test to weed out any irrational fears we may be struggling with! In fact, this is a pretty good test to keep EVERY thought we have lining up with what is pleasing to God!
Is what I’m thinking actually the truth? Is what I’m thinking noble (upright, righteous, moral, etc.)? Is what I’m thinking just (by God’s definition of just)? Are my thoughts pure? Are they lovely? Are they bringing a good report (or a negative one)? Is there anything virtuous about what I am thinking? Is what I am thinking praiseworthy (deserving of praise and admiration)? Yikes! How many of us could say the majority of our thoughts are passing this test? That’s quite a test but that is what God desires of us. He created us in His image and has given us the capability to think like Him as well. If we want to think like Him, then this is the standard we are to measure our thoughts by!
“Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones” Proverbs 16:24. Never forget that the words we speak and the thoughts we think are incredibly powerful. The words in our hearts are either bringing life or death and it is up to us to determine which one we want. “The tongue that brings healing is a tree of life…” Proverbs 15:4. I don’t know about you, but I want to bring healing into my life! “He sent forth His word and healed them…” Psalm 107:20. His Word not only brings truth and helps us discern between the truth and the lies but it also brings healing. If we wish to heal from the fears, the anxiety, and the pain in our lives we must find healing in His Word.
Freedom from irrational fear will only be found through careful study and application of His Word. “I will walk about in freedom for I have sought out your precepts” Psalm 119:45. God’s Word brings freedom. Whatever you may be facing right now in this moment; beloved, there is help and hope for you in His Word. “I sought the LORD [on the authority of His Word], and He answered me, and delivered me from all my fears. They looked to Him and were radiant; their faces will never blush in shame or confusion” Psalm 34:4-5 (AMP). It may sound too simple to be true but it is. God’s Word brings freedom. God’s Word brings healing. God’s Word sets us free from bondages.
“Jesus said, ‘Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free’” John 8:32. It is the truth that sets us free. The truth always brings freedom. Last night was another confirmation of that promise. The truth of what had made the noise set me free from the fear that had overcome me. The truth set me free. The truth is what we must cling to if we want to be free. Whatever you are struggling with right now, find the truth and cling to that. Determine what the truth is and do not allow fear to make you believe anything but what you know is truth. If you are uncertain, then seek His face about the matter; He is more than willing to reveal truth to you!
My son, give attention to my words; incline your ears to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your eyes; keep them in the midst of your heart; for they are life to those who find them, and health to all their flesh. Keep your heart with all diligence for out of it springs the issues of life. Proverbs 4:20-23
Additional Words of Advice:
If you are struggling with any irrational fears or are feeling overwhelmed with doubts, then I urge you to stop now and confront them head on. (Since God has not given us a “spirit of fear” this means there is one. If you find yourself overwhelmed with irrational, sudden, or unfounded fear, command the spirit of fear to leave in Jesus’ name!) For fears that you regularly struggle with, get some paper and write down the thoughts that you are struggling with then pray over what you have written. Ask God to reveal to you anything you have written down that is not true. Mark out everything that you have written down that is not true or does not line up with Phil. 4:8. Next, ask God to bring to your mind what is true about your situation. Ask Him to help you see only the true facts of the problem. This is also a good time to ask Him to help you see anything He may be trying to teach you or reveal to you during this time. Continue praying and journaling anything He speaks to your heart during this time and do not stop until you have been given a peace concerning your situation. Before you finish, ask God to lead you to some Scriptures you can cling to as you continue pressing forward through whatever challenge you may be dealing with. Write those Scriptures down and keep them handy so that you can read them and meditate on them frequently. Do your best to keep clinging to the Truth and reject any lies Satan tries to tempt you to consider. Remember it is the truth that sets you free!
Grace and peace,
Katrina Douglas
