About Fear

Here is me walking along with my plans and my intentions and I want everything to be neat and tidy. 

I've got my lists and my calendars and it makes me feel better. 

Especially as I enter into a new school year. Or new circumstances. Or a new season...of life.

photo credit: dlemieux via photopin cc

Well, that's what I want to do. The reality is, when I'm really struggling with fear I can barely get to work on time, let alone plan out my day. I walk around my life seeing things that need to be done, but feeling bound and gagged. I start desperately looking around for something I can do to fix this - a plan, an answer key, a flow chart. A list, a system, a fix.

But nothing lands. 
I grab for them and they crumble in my hands. I'm still lost. I can't lean on my lists or my plans, for security. The rug has been pulled from beneath me. Now I'm even more afraid.  I'm still falling thru mid air with no safety net to catch me. 
I can't stomach the ride.

What can I do?

"You aren't helpless," he said to me. "You have the help of the helpless."

I don't think it's going to be a magical moment where all the sudden I’m not afraid anymore. 
It will be hard work to cling to God’s promises. 

It will be gradual.

It’s going to require moment-by-moment responses to his promises.  It’s going to mean feeling uncomfortable and having to settle into this new reality.  
My new normal: not being in control.

Clinging to God’s promises in the midst of fear is all I have left.  And it is serving me well.  There have been a few specific Bible verses that I desperately hold onto in fearful moments.  

I re-read them over and over.  

I repeat them in breathless moments when I’m frantic for peace.  

Sometimes I cry them out.  Sometimes I just stare at them and ask God to wrap them around my heart.  

I want to encourage you to cling to God's promises in the midst of your fear.  Here are some Bible verses serving me well. 

“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.  I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous hand.”

Isaiah 41:10

“For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.  For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

2 Corinthians 12:10

“We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perpelexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed… Therefore we do not lose heart.  Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.”

2 Corinthians 4:8-9,16

Do you have a go to verse or prayer in the midst of fear?Have you felt the desperation of losing control of your circumstances?  Do tell!  Sharing could mean encouragement for someone else struggling with this today.