Fighting the Ferocious Force That Is Fear
When I was a child, I was afraid of the dark.
I feared monsters in the closet and basement. I feared that my family home would be burglarized at night by violent thieves. I kept a nightlight in my bedroom to keep it from being fully engulfed in nighttime darkness. I was afraid of my own vivid dreams sometimes, even though they were rarely nightmares.
I never read the Goosebumps series because I knew my own imagination could make me scared enough. I even had trouble watching Monsters, Inc. as a child because it hit my fears too close to home.
My imagination was hyperactive. A child psychologist might say that my fears manifested as fantasies rather than realistic possibilities because I didn’t know or understand what I really feared. I was just—for some reason—afraid.
Looking back, I think I was afraid of certain types of people, of school bullies and bad guys and bad guys pretending to be good guys. But I couldn’t fully comprehend the spiritual warfare involved in my fear. So monsters and darkness it was, kind of like how Harry Potter was most scared of dementors in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
Fortunately, there were a couple things that enabled me to withstand that fear as a child. One was prayer. I probably learned to pray before I learned to talk, because I grew up with parents who loved Jesus with all their hearts. So I prayed against my fear, day and night. Nothing fancy, just a child’s simple “Lord, help me and protect me” prayer. Eventually my mom taught me to “put on the full armor of God” in prayer each morning before I got on the school bus.
I wasn’t sure what was supposed to happen when I prayed against fear. I just knew that it was what I was supposed to do. Looking back, I think God answered in subtle ways by protecting me and giving me rest, perseverance, and even a certain obliviousness to the ways of the world until I was old enough to handle them. I prayed as a child does, and God delights to hear and answer the prayers of children, even if they don’t quite understand what they’re doing or why.
The other thing that helped me overcome my nightly fear was a simple phrase that my dad would say whenever I told him how I was feeling: “There are angels surrounding our house.” In other words, our house was in a bubble of blessing and favor from the Lord because we had faith in Him. Even when bad things could’ve happened in the home, like power outages, small kitchen fires, falling trees, or floods, our house stood strong, both physically and spiritually.
Unfortunately, fear didn’t leave me as I grew up. It just changed form.
It became fear of failure and trying new or hard things, leading to perfectionism, laziness, and malaise.
It became fear of rejection and relational separation (spurred on by the death of loved ones like my mom and grandparents), leading to codependency and people-pleasing.
It became fear of conflict, leading to pent-up frustration and resentment, an inability to properly process or constructively channel charged emotions, and an unwillingness to dive deeply into the causes of problems.
It became fear of not having enough, leading to a general dissatisfaction with what I physically possess (even though I have been blessed with physical abundance that I don’t deserve).
It became fear of the future, of the kinds of things that God would ask me to do with my life if I truly surrendered my will to Him.
It became fear of being trapped in destructive patterns of behavior and thought, leading to a form of spiritual and mental imprisonment that I’ve only in the last few years begun to break free of.
In probably one of the best quotes from the prequel Star Wars trilogy, that tiny-but-mighty green theologian Yoda says, “Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.” This may not be actual scripture, but I see its truth in the world and within myself every day.
Fear has too often robbed me of joy and hope.
Joy: not a temporary feeling of happiness, but the lasting spiritual experience of finding meaning and fulfillment in life, a lasting satisfaction with one’s lot in life—a gift given by God.
Hope: the belief that what is right now will not always be, that this too shall pass, and great everlasting happiness and renewal lie ahead that can’t be compared to anything that currently exists—again, given by God.
I don’t fear the boogeyman in my closet anymore (it’s too stuffed with clothes and junk for anything to hide in it anyway), but I do fear anything that could put distance between me and God, including my own fickle thoughts and emotions and opinions of others.
And yet…
God continually reminds me not to be afraid of anything or anyone, because His Word tells us He has overcome all things. I’ve only recently come to a place where I can decide that fear isn’t worth the time it steals. It’s not worth giving the time of day to the lies it tells, because the truth is, through Jesus, I can claim victory over the enemy of my soul.
Now, I’m not talking about the fear of God, which the Bible makes clear is a form of ultimate reverence of His sovereign divinity, righteous authority, holy judgment, and loving power. Biblical fear of God leads to wisdom and discernment, as the Book of Proverbs reminds us.
I’m talking about worldly fear that holds me back from experiencing the fullness of life that God calls me to. Even if I had nothing or no one around me, I would have Him, and countless sufferers and martyrs of the faith have proclaimed that He was enough for them in their darkest and most destitute days.
“Faith over fear” is a pithy statement that I see on yard signs and hear on social media sound bites these days. Unfortunately, I think it’s far more easily proclaimed than accomplished. Not only that, this statement also doesn’t clarify what kind of faith or fear is being talked about. Both faith and fear can be misguided and twisted such that the intent of the saying is rendered null and void.
But if we’re talking about faith that means devotion to Christ, which leads to humility, repentance, the destruction of idols, and the bearing of spiritual fruit, then yes, I think faith can overcome fear.
We listen then to Psalm 118:6, which states, “The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?”
What can people do to take away my hope and joy? Nothing, if by the strength and guidance of the Holy Spirit I don’t allow them to. They can’t even truly take my life, because my eternity is secure in my Savior.
Jesus is the source of our faith, and He is our living hope. Nothing else will do. No fear can stand against Him.
Again, it’s easy to say this, and it’s not an easy or quick process to overcome fear. I’ve spent years putting my life under a magnifying glass and playing whack-a-mole with fear whenever it pops up its little goblin head. But God is faithful to those who truly bear His Name. I’ve found that simply bringing my fear to Him in prayer and asking for strength—as I did when I was scared of the dark and of what school bullies would do the next day—can often be enough to let His Spirit settle my spirit.
“Fear, he is a liar
He will take your breath
Stop you in your steps
Fear, he is a liar
He will rob your rest
Steal your happiness
Cast your fear in the fire
'Cause fear, he is a liar.”
—Zach Williams