Some thoughts on fear

Hello dear friends,

I’ll be honest, it is not my natural inclination to make public my thoughts and ruminations, however, as I am entering my third month living in Bulgaria, I have become consistently more aware and conscious of what is preventing me from fully embracing what the Lord has given me each specific day. I think most people would say that they don’t want to be inhibited by useless inhibitions and we all have different obstacles that fog our minds from knowing truth; for me, on of these obstacles is fear. And I wouldn’t describe it as an anxious kind of fear, but more as a companion, a force and a reasoning through which I filter my observations and thoughts concerning other people, the world and myself. When I do the work of narrowing down why I think a particular thing or feel a certain way, I often find that it is fear. A fear of not being accepted or of making a ginormous mistake. Because of fear, I often choose the safest thing and I have no hesitation in saying that often times, what God is calling us to is not the “safest” thing. 

Before I left the States, my dear Grandma noted Isaiah 43 as a passage which she has benefited so much from meditating on. So, in taking a morsel of Grandma’s wisdom, I have also been meditating on this passage and it has been so rich. The chapter opens by saying, “But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: ‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.’” (Is. 43:1)

I can sit in just that verse and mull through all the ways that I am and am not living in the fearlessness that my identity as a daughter of the Creator invites me to. God will bring about His purposes regardless of whether or not I am obedient, but I don’t want to miss being a part of what He is doing and the coming of the Kingdom, because I am stuck in the world of lies that fear generously provides.

My junior year of college was a time when I really realized how affected I was by fear and I began to see all the ways that I was being directed by fear rather than the truth of the Gospel. I wrote a poem, from the perspective of my fear, during that time in attempt to process through the role that fear had in my everyday thinking.

I have found that even when I have been walking in the darkness and lies of fear, the Lord is faithful to stay by my side and take me through and back into truth. Isaiah 42:16 says, “And I will lead the blind in a way that they do not know, in paths that they have not known I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground. These are the things I do, and I do not forsake them.” I am very grateful for His patience and persistence and the freedom that is in the Gospel and in Christ.