“For God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power, love, and a sound mind.” – 2 Timothy 1:7Knowing the word, intellectually, was never a problem for me. I spent the last eight years (from 11 to 19) of my childhood sitting in Sunday School, leading Bible Drill Team’s, and attending Youth Church—all places where the memorization of scripture is as obligatory as stopping at a red light. However, in every area of my life, my struggle has always been in figuring out how to take the revelations that I might receive from the word of God and effectively activate them in my life for a complete deliverance. How do I wrap my heart around what I thoroughly understood in my brain? That struggle and my own, very real and lifelong battle with fear, is what leads me to write in the way that I do. For me, it is about engaging with the many people (and even characters) who seem to have their own daily confrontations with fear.
The physical manifestation of fear is a result of a “spiritual mêlée” of such proportions that we, as humans, cannot begin to fathom its scale nor consequence. It is incredible how many people there are in this world that dismiss the demonic nature of a Spirit of Fear and cannot distinguish between it and that natural, sense of conscience; the andrenaline-driven emotion that we mistakenly call by the same name. Then there are those who confuse reverence and awe with the damage that the spirit of Fear can cause. The fact is, there is a significant distinction between Fear (upper-case) and fear (lower-case) and maybe in the next blog, I will explain the difference. Nonetheless, the two can be so interconnected that spending too much time in the lower case variety will almost always send you into a full-blown case of the upper-case kind.
Folks have said to me, “Tracey, don’t make such a big deal about it. There are plenty of people who are scared of flying. Scared of heights. Scared of spiders. You know, little things. Lower-case fear stuff.” True. Yet, what they fail to realize is that Fear, the spirit called Fear, is much like cancer. Once it has taken over one part of your spiritual body, it will began to attack every other part of your life until it has infested you. In fact, it’s nastier than cancer because cancer’s only reach is in the physical realm. The cancer called Fear can kill your spirit and inevitably manifest itself in the physical realm in the form of sickness, depression, and guilt. It does double duty. For me, what started off as a fear of flying ended up being a fear of dying, a fear of failure, a fear of success, a fear of not being loved , a fear of speaking up, a fear of talking too much, and fear of other people’s perceptions and views of me. At a season in my life, et suffocated me and it will suffocate you. It will stifle you and fear will keep you from fulfilling your God given purpose and reaching your destiny.
Today, and everyday of my life, I am attacking this cancerous poison much like a doctor would do for a terminally ill patient. First, I am applying medicine to the infected areas. My chosen antibiotic is the Word of God. The Word can be that salve that, with consistent use, can send the fear cancer packing. However, I’ve found that in some areas the infestation is so deep that, in addition to my word medicine, I need God’s radiation treatment. He has to burn that cancer out of me. As much as I hate it, it is the trials and tribulations that I face daily that is giving me strength. I pray the prayer of the one who was healed by Jesus, “Lord, Help my unbelief.” And he does, providing me peace in the place of Fear. As with any radiation treatment, I’ve lost some things in trying to believe for my healing but that is part of the journey and I don’t know if I’d change that for the world.
What are your thoughts on fear?
TMLG
HeARTtalk - Healing Through Art and Story 