As of writing this I have spent the last 39 days living in fear, and the funny thing about it is that every day you live in fear is wasted. You don’t wake up wiser, braver or stronger than the day before. That only comes when you beat your fear. If you struggle with anxiety or just have been going through a hard time lately and are scared it’s nowhere near over, you are not alone.
Am I going the right direction with my degree? Will I actually enjoy what I’ll do with it? Will I be financially stable? Will I find the person I’m supposed to spend my life with? Should I just pick up my life, move to India and never look back? All of these thoughts (and many more) ran through my mind constantly and terrified me.
I can’t explain why these things all of a sudden became so urgent that they kept me up at night. Life just gets scary sometimes. But I have decided to leave my fear behind me. Can it be as simple as just deciding not to be fearful anymore?
The Bible says in 1 Peter 5:6-7 “6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, 7 casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” So that’s what I did. I found myself in tears, head in my hands, and I reached a point where I was so mentally and emotionally exhausted that I could not handle it anymore. I read over this verse and I just asked God to take these worries away from me and man, did He come through.
It wasn’t immediate, but I woke up the next morning with this peace about everything. That’s one of the many fantastic things about God; he loves to give good gifts when we ask (see Matthew 7:11 if you’re interested.)
What else does the Bible say about fear? Well we can see several examples where we’re commanded not to have it (Deuteronomy 31:6, Joshua 1:9, Philippians 4:6-7, and so much more.) We also are given perfect examples of why we have no reason to fear!
We are reminded in John 14:27 that we have already been given the gift of peace in Christ Jesus. In fact, it is pointed out to us in 1 John 4:18 that the perfect love we receive from our Father casts out our fear.
I’ve been reading through the Psalms recently and the other night I came across what I find to be one of the simplest yet most beautiful verses in the Bible. Psalm 34:4 says “I prayed to the Lord, and he answered me. He freed me from all my fears.” The solution to my problems had been staring me straight in the face! I had been praying that God would help me to be strong and make it through this season of fear but that night I sat down and just asked him to take the fear away. That’s just a perfect example of how digging into His word is so valuable to us. Will you pray and allow God to set you free from your fear?
If you still need a reason not to worry just read this powerful word from the book of Luke: “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?”
Our lives mean so much more than how much stuff we have or what that person we can’t stop thinking about thinks about us. All that really matters is what God thinks about you, and He loves us so vastly in a way we could never comprehend. This may feel like the hardest thing you’re ever going to go through, because it’s the chapter you’re on right now, but years from now this will just be a small part of the story that is your life. You just have to keep reading!
