Do Not Fear What is Frightening

I don’t generally fear many things. I’m not the mom afraid of all the things. I don’t generally panic when crisis hits. With the help of the Lord, I can usually see the fearful situations for what they are, and deal with them as they arise, with Him.

I’ve even been told before that I’m like the calm before the storm (oooh). This all sounds boasty, but it’s not my intention. I hope you’ll be able to see that we all struggle, but in different ways.

There is one fear that I have regularly been ensnared by. Fear of man. And when it hits me, it hits me hard. If I am not on my A-game, aware of what’s happening in the Spirit, all rationale goes out the window. A false reality enters in, and everything I think about is filtered through it. It’s a terrible place to be. Paralyzing.

I’d say it’s ridiculous, and it is. But it’s more than that. It’s deathly.

In 1 Peter 3, Peter speaks directly to women about how to carry themselves. It’s fascinating to me that he speaks to both external and internal beauty, tying them together. One phrase at the end of his explanation always gets my attention:

“And you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening” (v6).

Implicit in this verse is that you and I *will* encounter things in life that are scary! Frightening! Have you noticed that throughout Scripture, God tells different people, “Do not fear!”? And, that simultaneous to His command, He is actually in the process of leading that person right into something we would certainly deem frightening?

In other words, God is saying, “Don’t fear THAT, fear ME.”

Rather than being a harsh command, His “do not fear” is an invitation. It’s an invitation to let HIM consume us, and to walk straight into that scary thing with Him.

Any other fear, if we let it reign, will crush us and kill us. The fear of Lord is the only kind of fear that leads to life (Prov. 19:23).

It’s an invitation to let the Lord have His rightful, magnified place in our heart, and to knock down that scary thing to its rightful small place.

I had an experience several years ago in which I knew that Lord was calling me to do something that was scary. In public. Like, other people would be watching me and might think I was any manner of weird. And, I knew that to not do it would mean disobedience.

So with His help (and wrestling to get there), I locked my gaze on Him. My reality in those moments—all that I saw and heard–was Him and His voice. He overshadowed every person in that room, every loud whisper from my enemy.

I followed Him into obedience, and He set me free that day from a layer of fear of man that I thought I’d never break through.

As it often is with life, He’s still working on this with me. Just when I think, “Freeeedommmmm!,” He peels back another layer and goes a little deeper, showing me just how deeply ingrained this nasty sin is.

It’s not that the freedom isn’t real. It is. But on this side of heaven, there’s always more to be had.

So He continues to invite me to keep on going with Him right up to that thing that’s fearful. But also, when I cooperate, He takes me to depths of His heart that I never knew I could reach. He wants to go to the depths of my heart, root out anything that takes His place, and take me to the depths of His.

If this is what rooting out sin looks like, I want to keep going to that scary place with Him. I want to do violence to my flesh, because in the process I keep discovering just how beautiful He is. Just how worthy He is of me casting it ALL on Him. I know His heart better and better.

And as I do, I look more like Him. His radiance is reflected in me. My strength is not mine, but His. When my fear is put in its rightful place, any scary thing becomes an opportunity for His glory to be made manifest. Just like there are places in His heart I never knew about, He manifests His glory through my life in ways I never thought about.

I hesitated writing about this because it’s fresh on my heart. I had to deal with fear of man just this week in a major way. But I’m realizing that I may never get to a point when I think I’m mature enough, far enough past it to speak about it.

I do know that I’ve had a lot of practice through the years in overcoming deeper layers of it, and so, the Lord has given me abundant measures of grace, comfort, and encouragement to offer to others in similar situations (2 Cor. 1:3-6).

I’ve tasted the freedom that comes from putting my fear in its rightful place over and over again. And as I continue to fight for it, I want to help others do the same. We are in a race together, and we need to help each other get to Jesus once we finish our race here.

The Lord knows how those closest to me have helped me in this place, repeatedly. I hope you have someone, or a few people that you can let in really close to help you, too.

I’m so thankful for the article that Jon Bloom wrote on Desiring God about fear yesterday, because it spoke directly to what the Lord was brought me through this week. It was to me, a timely word from a brother whom I do not know. It came on the other side of the battle, and bolstered my heart. And so, I pass it on to you.

Go read it, and have your heart strengthened!