(This post is an excerpt from my new book, Weenie Faith, available now on Amazon.)
Fear is an emotional response. When faced with an intense emotion, I find it helpful to try to switch on the logical part of my brain. Dictionary definitions can do just that. Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines fear as “an unpleasant often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger” or “anxious concern.” I agree with you, Merriam-Webster, it’s definitely unpleasant.
Some fear is natural and actually helpful. Consider the kind of fear that makes you look twice before merging into four lanes of traffic. This is a useful fear that can protect you from getting in an accident. Or the fear that keeps you from putting your hand on an open flame. This also is the protective type of fear. These are normal, everyday, dare-I-say healthy fears that prolong our lives, or at least their quality.
The Unhealthy Kind
But there is a fear that is not healthy and does not help us in any way. That is the kind of fear I will be addressing in this chapter. It’s the kind of fear that God does not want us to have in our lives because it can damage us, and we were not created to carry it. It comes with many aliases, from a small worry to a full-fledge panic attack. Both healthy and unhealthy fear have one purpose in common: they immobilize us. But whereas healthy fear prevents us from harm, unhealthy fear stops us from fully living, and that is the opposite of what God wants for us.
I like to refer to this kind of fear as “the tuck and drop.” In our modest home, we have a 10-gallon aquarium with four fish and two snails (I know, it sounds like a parable.) This aquarium first started out as a small container pond in our backyard which was relocated indoors when we realized that our tiny pets might not last through a snowy winter in the great outdoors. I’ve been told that watching fish is meant to be calming, but these fish have not yet inspired that elusive tranquility.
They are pretty enough, I suppose, but they are extremely nervous. I suppose God found it amusing to give me four weenie fish. Actually, I think what happened is that they may have been attacked a time or two by the neighborhood squirrels or the cat that lives down the street in their outdoor days. For whatever reason, they are very skittish. Just the slightest motion from the other side of the room can send them dashing about.
The two little snails obviously move much slower, but I have noticed that whenever a fish swims frantically past them, they snails will tuck and drop. Meaning that they just tuck their feelers and sticky bodies inside of their shells and drop to the bottom of the aquarium. I don’t believe they can even see or feel any movement from outside of the tank, but their instinct must tell them that if a fish goes into panic mode, danger must be near, so they tuck and drop.
I can really relate to these snails. So often, I have no logical reason to be afraid. I have no evidence that anything scary is occurring or is about to occur, yet I respond to the slightest rumor, the shortest thread on Twitter, the most grim diagnosis on WebMD, or the dimmest outlook of the nightly news, and I tuck and drop. My instincts kick in and I pull my feelers and my body inside of my shell and drop to the bottom until I discover that indeed, there was actually nothing to be afraid of. Just a dimwitted fish swimming at mach speeds for no reason. When the dust finally settles, I realize that I was taking my cues from someone who doesn’t even know the truth herself.
One Root of Fear
Fear of this nature is often rooted in some form of unbelief which itself stems from a lie that we are believing about God’s nature or character. Let me say that again because it’s really important. Fear is often rooted in a lie that we believe about God. David Wilkerson once wrote, “Unbelief always hinders the fullness of God’s revelation and blessing.” When we are faced with one of life’s many crises, we can go down one of two paths: the path of truth and faith or the path of lies and unbelief.
For example, let’s say that my car breaks down, and I don’t have the money to fix it. That is a fact. I cannot wish away my car problems or pretend that they do not exist. At this moment, I have two choices that I can make. I can begin to worry about how I am going to pay for my car to get fixed or if I’ll have to buy a new one all together. I can fret over how I am going to get to work without a car or how paying for this unexpected bill will deplete the funds that we’ve been saving up. I can explode on my kids for interrupting my train of worrisome thought and waste precious hours of sleep mulling over all of the possibilities. Choosing to entertain these what-ifs sets me on the path of fear and unbelief.
OR at that moment, I can choose the path of truth and faith. I can remind myself that God is my Shepherd and I shall not want (Psalm 23). I will not be in need. He will provide. This is the truth, even if it doesn’t feel like it at the time. God’s word is truer than my emotions. As I tell myself the truth, faith begins to rise up because, as we learned in chapter two, faith comes from hearing and hearing from the word of God (Romans 10:17).
If you’d like to read more, please check out my book, Weenie Faith. It’s available now on Amazon.
