What do you do with fear?
What do you do with it? I get this question a lot as I teach on living in perfect peace now
I'm talking a lot about cultivating courage. What do you do with fear? It's a very important question
Not just the idea of fear or fear as a concept but the actual feeling of it when it shows up in your body
floods your mind and wants to dictate your next move a
Lot of us have been handed one of two options in dealing with fear and neither one of them work
The first option is suppression just suppress it. This is the religious version. It says things like
Good Christians don't feel afraid fear is a sin if you had more faith, you wouldn't feel this way
So it teaches us to override it push it down. Just pretend it's not there
maybe you grew up hearing things like
Fear is the opposite of faith. If you're afraid you're not trusting God
And so you've learned to feel shame every time fear shows up. You've learned to perform peace
Externally while anxiety continues to eat you up internally
Suppression says just don't feel it
Option two is surrender just surrender to it. This is the world's version
We hear things like live your truth follow your heart be true to yourself and
those phrases
Sound freeing at first
But listen to what they're actually saying act on what you feel
Let your emotions lead let your emotions be your guide. And if you don't you're being inauthentic
It's the belief that what we feel is who we are
But scripture tells us that emotions are not our highest indicator of truth. I
Do understand the appeal to this especially if you grew up in option one because again, it feels like freedom
It feels like permission to finally be free of the shame that you're feeling and just feel what you feel
But here's what happens when you surrender to your emotions you become subject to them
When fear leads you're at the mercy of every anxious thought
Every worst-case scenario every chemical fluctuation and that is not freedom. That's a different kind of bondage
So you've got
suppression you have
surrender and
neither one works
This is why I wanted to talk about this today because again, we're talking about cultivating courage and
We we need to know that suppressing emotions
Does not produce courage it produces performance
Surrendering to your emotions does not produce courage. It produces
paralysis
so if we're gonna cultivate courage
we need to find a third way for dealing with fear and anxiety and I have really good news because
Scripture offers us a third way and it's not a formula to simply manage your emotions better
It's an invitation to lead your emotions in wholeness
Instead of being led by them wherever they choose to lead you day after day
In Matthew 26, we see in Gethsemane Jesus tells his disciples something really interesting
He says my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death
Jesus felt it and he even talked about it. Can you imagine doing that in a religious circle?
He even named what he was feeling. He even asked father God if there was another way, but then he says something that's so key
Not my will but yours be done
He felt the fear. He did not let it lead and this is really important
He did not white knuckle through it alone. He brought it to father God
David modeled was something very powerful and very similar in Psalm 42. He asked three times
Why are you downcast oh my soul why so disturbed within me
He's not ignoring his soul. He's talking to it. He's acknowledging the turmoil
But then he says to his soul put your hope in God
He's not letting his soul lead. He is leading his soul to wholeness
Here's what you and I have that David didn't
We have the Holy Spirit permanently living inside of us John 14 17 says the Spirit is with you and will be in you
Not visiting not temporary but permanently in you
This is the spirit led life that Paul talks about in Romans 8 the Holy Spirit leads us
Your spirit is united with Christ and responsive to the Holy Spirit and from that place of union with Christ
You exercise authority
Leadership over your soul and body you're not suppressing what you feel
You're not being ruled by what you feel
But you're bringing what you feel under the leadership of the Spirit who lives inside
you. And here's what I want you to hear today. This is not about managing fear better. This is
about true transformation. 1 John 4, 18 says, perfect love cast out fear. Fear does not get
defeated by fighting it. It gets displaced as you grow in your knowing of who God is and who
you are in him. When you're consistently bringing your emotions to God, instead of burying them,
instead of being led by them, something actually changes. You're not stuck with fear forever. This
is really good news. Romans 12, two talks about this transformation process that says you're
transformed by the renewing of your mind. And it's not just this nice idea. It's a promise
that you can put the full weight of your life on. Now here's how I learned this. Cause I remember a
season where I was facing something so excruciatingly hard and painful. And I kept telling
myself things like it's fine. Everything's fine. It's no big deal because I trust God. And I
remember after doing that for a while, God gently stopping me and saying, Linds, if this is no big
deal, then what are you trusting me with? And that question broke through the facade of this external
calm I had learned to perform while trying to suppress my fear and anxiety and pain that was
all stirring up within me. I realized that by suppressing my fear, trying to suppress my fear,
I was not demonstrating faith. I was actually bypassing it because faith requires something
to trust God with. And if it's no big deal, there's no opportunity for him to show up as my
refuge and my fortress and my God. I was using trust language as a way to avoid actually
trusting. It's really easy to say I trust God. It's harder to actually do it. And I was saying
it by refute, but refusing to admit that there was something I needed to trust him with.
That is self-reliance dressed up in spiritual clothes. So if you, if you, you know, resonate
with that story, you're like, okay, I can relate to that. Here's what I want to leave you with
today. Your emotions are not your enemy, but they're not your guide either. They are designed
to be led and you have a Holy spirit living inside of you to do exactly that. So this week,
wherever you are, whatever option you're dealing with, I want to invite you to do something really
simple. Be honest with God about what you're feeling, not cleaned up, not spiritualized,
just honest, because here's, what's true about our God. He's not intimidated by fear and he's
not disappointed by anxiety. He's not waiting for you to get it together before he shows up.
He's with you right now in the middle of it. And he's big enough to hold whatever you bring him.
That's not weakness. That honesty with God is not weakness. That is actually the beginning
of courage. And in our next episode, I'm going to continue talking about this. We're going to get
even more practical. I'm going to talk about what it actually looks like to take your fear and
anxiety to God and not walk away, still carrying it. But because I think that's where most of us
get stuck, but I wanted to just first start with this one step. It's not all the steps. It's just
steps. It's just the first one. Courage isn't about managing your fear. It's about being anchored
in God's presence. And the source of your courage is not your ability to push through. It's his
promise to never leave.