An Anatomy of Fear

Over the last year and a half I have been thinking about fear, its nature, its causes, how it affects me and most importantly how to overcome it. Now it is time for me to wax philosophical. These are my thoughts, based on my own experience so please feel free to comment, to disagree, to proffer your own opinions, experiences and or ideas. 

I have to admit that to date I have not managed to overcome fear in my life. I am more familiar than I would like to be with its paralysing grip. The way it curls its tendrils up through my belly, around my heart and tugs, as it cries out, "Look at me, look at me." Demanding my attention to the exclusion of everything else, causing me to do and say things I know I will regret in the morning. Playing with me, holding me tight one day, doling out the chains another so that I think maybe I'm winning and then cruelly slamming me back up against the prison wall. I know its chuckle as it watches me squirm, I feel its satisfaction as it feeds on the hate I have for it and I see myself spinning desperately in its grasp searching for a way out, for freedom.

It's strange, in the last year and a half I have had many people tell me how brave I am to be doing what I am doing and in the last year and a half I have struggled with fear more than any other time in my life. The thing is, choosing to take that second years leave and go to America rather than back to my safe life was not about fear or courage. It was about life and death.

While I was teaching in Sydney in 2009 I meet a lovely lady, maybe ten years older than me, a dedicated teacher, who was quite a bit larger than I was at the time and she had major health issues and I realised that unless I made major changes in my life then her present was my future, and that I would probably be dead in 15 years. I chose to live. 

Obviously it was the right choice - My year in America was a turning point in my life for which I will always thank God. Book-ended by my getting off the fence and deciding to follow God completely on my first Sabbath, and being re-baptised on my last Wednesday. And, in between those two events I lost 75 pounds* and regained my health. 

Now I am coming to realise that giving into fear is another way of dying. And again I am choosing to live.

When I was living my nice safe life in Palmerston North with my lovely safe job and my lovely safe friends and my lovely safe home and fulfilling societies expectations I had little fear. Actually that is not true, there were things I feared but I ignored them. My life was full enough with school and friends and a nice income, and my independence that I could easily avoid situations that caused me to fear. Sometimes I would wistfully wish that I could be involved in certain activities but then I would find something else with which to fill the hole: food, a movie, a story book, an outing with a friend, a new project at school and I could stifle the desire to overcome fear and pretend that I was not afraid of anything - for a while.

There was one area of fear that was more difficult to ignore, but I could look back over the previous few years and see how God had brought me through that fear, to the point that just before I left NZ for America I remember congratulating myself and God on how far I had come. Just days before I left the country I was in a situation where previously I would have retreated into a book to hide from the source of my fear and I had handled the situation with confidence and ease. Was so proud of myself, and you know what they say about pride and falling!

In that year in America I did not have any of the things I used to use to stifle fear. It reared its ugly head with a vengeance, with an insistence on making up for all those years of neglect. It irritated me no end, I could see that my fears were irrational and had no bases in reality but I still could not overcome them. I tried several approaches to deal with the fear:

1. Ignoring it - was not possible without my props.
2. Giving into it - this did not work as the fear simply grew until I found myself unable to even stay in the same room as the object of my fear. Only tried that approach once - most uncomfortable.
3. Fighting it - and I have done this repeatedly, using pure determination and teeth gritting gut strength. Only that made me turn into a blithering idiot, who either sat paralysed like a lump and could say nothing or said ‘silly’ things because I was so busy in my head fighting to not give into the fear that I didn't have time to work out intelligent things to say.
4. Praying about it - have done that a lot!!!! However just this week I have come to realise that my praying had the wrong focus.

Over my year in America I saw God at work in situations teaching me to deal with the fear - to walk through it, or maybe it was simply a case of 'familiarity breeding contempt.' I started to become used to the fear, to be able to operate regardless of how I was feeling. This is an advance but I don't want to be existing in fear, I want to be free!

And now here I am in Korea, and here to meet me is my old frienemy fear. New context, same old fear. I know God will be faithful and bring me through it again but I am left wondering how many more times am I going to have to face this? Why can't I just win the fight once and for all and banish fear forever? Will my life ever come to the point where it is not ruled by fear? Does God really want me to repeat this cycle ad infinitum? or does He desire me to win and move on? I believe He desires me to win – all over the Bible He instructs us not to fear! So what am I not understanding? What is that vital key to overcoming fear that I have not yet discovered?

I've analysed the fear so much it should be dead! Do I know why I developed the fear? I think so. Do I know the events/situations that trigger it, that spur it into action? Most of the time I do. Do I know the lies I have believed that caused me to be vulnerable to the fear in the first place? God has shown me a couple of them and I am working to replace those lies in my heart with truth - God's truth. Does this help with dealing with fear when I'm being squeezed in its grip? Not in the slightest. Just like a medieval knight fighting a dragon, knowing the whole life-cycle of the dragon from the moment it hatches from its egg until it dies on its treasure horde does not help the knight wield the sword, my knowing the anatomy of my fear does not make me any more adept at conquering it.

And I think I've finally figured out why. I've been concentrating on the dragon. I should have been concentrating on the sword. Like the knight, if I am to have any chance of conquering the dragon I must know my sword intimately. I must be familiar with its balance, know how to wield it, how to care for it, sharpen it and have built up my strength so that I can lift it with ease. That sword is my salvation, my safety and my life.

That sword is the Word of God, and I wield it by focusing my thoughts on the truths of the Bible, by applying them to my life, by praying God's word back to Him, and by claiming His promises as my reality. My strength is my faith and the better I know and apply God's Word to my life the more deftly I can parry and thrust with my sword.

It is silly really that it has taken me so long to realise how to use this sword, particularly as I've used it before to fight other beasties, such as anger, and depression.

So where did I go wrong? 

Consider: fear is a large and demanding dragon. Rather like a misbehaving child in a classroom it insists that you give it all your attention. When fear is in the room nothing else is of consequence.

In my prayers and Bible Study I have been concentrating on verses such as:

2 Timothy 1:7
For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

Deuteronomy 31:6
Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the LORD thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.

Psalm 34:4
I sought the LORD, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.

There is nothing wrong with these verses, these are excellent verses, but they are for sharpening the sword, for practising to build up the faith muscles. When in the midst of a fight with the fear dragon these verses are not so helpful. When fear has its claws in your belly and it’s pulling your strings it seems like these verses are simply a lie. Now you can tell me that that is where faith comes in and that I must be patient but I am thinking that using verses like these when in the midst of the fight is like hitting a dragon with the flat of your sword, it doesn’t wound the dragon, it enrages it. 

Remember that I said fear is like a naughty child demanding all your attention? Like the child, fear does not care if that attention is positive or negative it just wants attention - lots of it. When I use verses like the above my focus is still on the fear. Take the verse from 2 Timothy, sure I can claim that promise, so now I know that the emotion ripping through me is not from God. Fine how does that help me right now? I'm still been torn apart. Or the verse from Deuteronomy, 'too late, I'm already afraid, God where are you?' In both cases my focus is still on the fear.

So how do I use the point and the edge of my blade? When in the midst of a battle rather than focussing on the fear, I am to place my focus elsewhere.

As it says in Matthew 6:33; "But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." Freedom from fear is one of those things that Jesus promises to add to us.

Where do I place my focus when in the midst of battle? On Christ, on His mercy, His goodness, His grace.

What promises do I claim as the sharp and pointy bits of my sword?

Ones like:

1 Corinthians 15:57
But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

2 Corinthians 2:14
Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place.

Isaiah 26:3

Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.

These verses and ones like them remove my focus from fear and onto Christ who is the true knight in shining armour, the triumphant victor. In retrospect the analogy of my fight with fear to date should really be one where the fair maiden is wearing a tin can on her head, carrying a pointy stick, trying to fight the dragon herself, and getting in the way of the Knight. Making it impossible for Him to fight the dragon because of the risk of stabbing the maiden, rather than the dragon. Must be rather frustrating for the Knight.

For the longest time He has been calling to me "Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness." (Isaiah 41:10) and I've been too deaf/stupid/distracted/obsessed to listen.

Do I expect that this battle will be won over night? No I know that changing habits of thought takes time. But I also know it can be done. The silly thing is that I should know this trick of refocusing my attention away from the battle and onto Christ. When I fought the Demon of Despair and Depression I won when I finally stopped allowing the dark and dreary thoughts to smother my mind and instead offered God whatever thanks I could think of at the time. (Story is here.) When I conquered the Cyclops of Anger it was by focussing on God’s gifts of forgiveness and contentment, not by telling myself that I should not be feeling angry and to just stop it! (Remind me to tell you that story sometime.)

I have faith that as I follow God’s instructions to those who would have a healthy mind I will conquer this dragon too – or to be more precise, the fair maiden will take herself out of the fight and allow Jesus to be the Knight in Shining Armour He desires to be.

Philippians 4:6-8Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

Fear is not one of those things!

*Have lost more since arriving in Korea - while home in NZ I just maintained the American lose, leaving the country weighing the same as I had when I arrived - not a gain, so I'm counting that as a win.