“For God did not give us a spirit of fear but he has given us a spirit of power and love and self-control”

-2 Timothy 1:7

God’s word is very clear that he did not create us to live in a constant state of fear. Yet I find myself constantly afraid of something or even just worried over the tiniest details. When I was younger I was afraid of spiders, the dark, thunderstorms and the list of fears could go on and on. I eventually conquered these “fears” by realizing I was bigger than the spider, sleeping with a nightlight, or started to view thunderstorms as God playing bowling in Heaven or clapping his hands to worship. And these fears started to seem silly; I grew a spirit of confidence knowing I conquered my fears. But fear never really goes away; it just comes to you in different forms or extremes. As I grew up my biggest fear wasn’t the dark or spiders anymore, it became a fear of never being enough for anyone in my life….Possibly not even God.

Some things in life we don’t even have a real reason to fear, we only fear them because of some mental block we’ve put up saying “we should be afraid.”  Other things we fear because of bad experiences. My fear of never being enough came from a lie the enemy had whispered to me when I was younger, in the form of criticisms from my grandmother, each encounter with her watered and encouraged this lie. The enemy used this person to create a fear in me that had me constantly striving to be good enough yet feeling like I’d never reach the “finish line.” This fear then began to dictate my everyday life and everything I did. See, you can never completely live a “fear-less” life in your own strength, because then that would mean we didn’t care about what was going on around us or what thing could possibly hurt ourselves or those around us. It’s okay to have fears; this is part of our human nature. However, God is the answer to every fear that we face, every insecurity, and doubt. Scripture tells us we are not given a Spirit of Fear, but when we allow the enemy to make our fears our focus they begin to dictate our lives and our identities. You must find the place in the middle of your fear to face it and hand it all over to God, realizing that his Spirit is one of confidence and not of fear.

God tells us to “Be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid,” in Joshua 1:9. Like wow! How empowering is that!!  Courage is doing what we know we should even when we are trembling in fear. Courage is conquering our fears by pressing through how we feel and the enemy’s lies and getting to the other side. Courage gives us the confidence to walk in the spirit of power, love, and self-control which is what God has given us. Over and over we read in different parts of the bible God commanding us to “FEAR NOT,”  and he commands this because he knows in our human nature we will fear. We will fear every big, small, rational and irrational thing that comes our way. And he knows that whatever lie the enemy whispers we will hear. The command is given to “Fear not” but it is also a promise; a promise that in Christ we are fearless, our fears become courage.

When we allow these fears to consume our lives we become ineffective in our “faith” walk; we become so wrapped up in these fears we lose track Of God and what he says. How can we minister to someone trapped in fear when we ourselves haven’t learned to “let go and let God?” Fear isn’t a sin, like I said, it’s normal to be afraid of something here and there. But it’s when you hold on to these thoughts of fear that it becomes tricky. This is where the spirit of power comes in, you must not let fear take your life captive. When you do allow this, fear begins to take root and can lead you down a long road of bondage to insecurity in life. But God gives us the spirit of power to break the bondage of fear and hand it all over to him.  God wants us to trust him in all things and that includes handing over fears we feel can’t be conquered. I love the verses in Isaiah where it says “Fear not for I am with you; do not be dismayed for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand”(Isaiah 41:10) and again in Isaiah 41:13 where it says, “For I, the Lord your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, ”Fear not, I am the one who helps you.” See how amazing it is to know that our God doesn’t leave us in our fear, but is there ready to hold our hand and helps us conquer it if we let him. In fact the term “Do not fear” is so important that God mentioned it about 365 times in the bible. Talk about wanting to get a point across!

You may feel like you aren’t strong enough to conquer the fears in your life or maybe you feel like God hasn’t really given you the spirit of power to do so but he has. As Christians, when we possess the indwelling Holy Spirit in our hearts; Gods power is already within us. It’s not really a matter of getting God’s power but recognizing and using what he has already given us. One of my camp leaders once described power as “an aggressive energy in the face of difficulty, which overcomes weakness.” The Greek word for power is Dunamis. I read once that Dunamis is used about 117 times in the New Testament. How crazy is that! Dunamis is the root word where we get our English words dynamic and dynamite. It’s kind of a crazy way to view God’s power in us. God’s power is dynamic and when used its even more powerful then dynamite. We see in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians that he doesn’t pray for believers to be given divine power but that they realize the divine power God has already given them. God has given all of the power to wage a victorious battle against our fears, may it be fears of the world, our flesh, or lies of the enemy. It’s so encouraging to know that God has equipped us for battle and with him we cannot fail. God knows that we could never do this on our own, in fact it states in 2 Corinthians 12:9 it says, “My power is made perfect in your weakness.” This is proof of how amazing our God is, he never asks us to conquer what he hasn’t already equipped us to do. He gives us the power to face every obstacle and overcome every fear. The enemy likes to keep us “stuck” in our fear, likes to dictate our life by it. He likes to stir up self-doubt that’s rooted by a fear telling us we will never be victorious.

Overcoming a fear isn’t easy and fears don’t disappear over-night or never come back. By nature we will always be afraid of something, but we must remember to hand it over to God. This is something I have to constantly remind myself. My fear has become a spiritual battle against the enemy. For the longest time I allowed the enemy’s lie to dictate how I saw myself and I allowed the spirit “of not being enough” to constantly drag me down. Walking in that spirit created a false reality where Satan became the director and I was his puppet. I allowed this fear to dictate how I felt others saw me, which made a lot of relationships difficult. I automatically assumed no matter what I did I couldn’t be enough for anyone and it became toxic. I became so trapped in this fear the enemy had planted that I began to miss out on what God said about me. I was so blinded by the fear of not being enough that I didn’t realize how “enough” I actually was. How in God no matter what I did, I would be enough because he created me that way. That no matter what failures, accomplishments, mistakes or whatever else I did my parents would still love me because I was enough. I also began to realize how silly this fear was, because I was created by an amazing God. He created me to be enough in him. And in the end it didn’t matter who liked me, who didn’t like me, who felt I wasn’t enough, or who saw me as” everything.” All that mattered was what God thought of me. Instead of walking in this fear and believing the enemies lies I began walking in God’s truth because that’s all that mattered and it has completely changed my life and my relationships.  Now this didn’t happen overnight. It took time and it’s still taking time.

When I feel down I can see the enemy slowly starting to creep that fear back in but instead of living in it I turn it over to God and “fear not” because I remember his promises for me and the courage he has given me to overcome the fears I have. So I encourage you to fear not and hand all your fears and worries over to God. You do not have to face these things alone. God equips us for battle and promises to never leave us. God created us to live in his promises, not fear.