Spirit of Fear

https://odb.org/MY/2021/10/24/talk-trust-feel

As I was growing up in the faith in a previous church, the method used to instill discipline is to create fear. I think it was to put the fear of God in our lives but some times ended up putting the fear of men in us. We were drilled to wake up at 5.00 am, do our devotions before God and then pass out our written devotional papers before we go for breakfast. I can’t remember exactly but I think we had an hour to sort everything out. It was a dreadful thing that I surely didn’t look forward to every morning then!

But as I looked back now, I realised that it was good training as I’m able to do this regularly now – wake up early, do my quiet time and write up my thoughts – all before the days starts. This training I received more than 30 years ago is seeing fruition after so many years. Fear is sometimes a good thing to instill discipline and consistency although we may hate it when we are going through it!

However, fear can also be oppressive and overly stressful and sometimes detrimental to our well being. The fear that comes when we have to do weekly reports of a project that is not progressing as planned. The fear to tell something to our bosses that is not favourable, being the bearer of bad news.The fear of making mistakes when conducting a hearing, of not knowing enough. The fear of not covering every angle and risk when drafting a contract. The fear of not knowing what to say next when preaching. The fear of not saying the right things when worship leading or if you have a solo piece, the fear of playing the notes wrongly.

Jesus did not give us a spirit of fear when we accepted Him. Instead He gave us the Holy Ghost who personifies boldness and courage. We will all have fears for reasons that may be personal to us, which may appear to be trivial to others. But our fears are real and if not managed properly, we may end up frozen with fear. At best, fear becomes oppressive and overly stressful.

From experience, the best way I believe to overcome our fears is to face them by preparing well. Confront them by preparing well to overcome them. In preaching, people say it’s 90% preparation, 10% delivery. I guess that applies to most things. The more we prepare, the more prepared we will be. But the difference is we have the Holy Spirit in us and on our side, He is the source of all power. Tap into that abundant ever flowing river of life in Christ, we will find our strength in Him as we persevere through and in the process we will overcome our fears. In fact, our past fears can now be our strengths to propel us to achieve greater glory in Christ, to achieve more for God in the Kingdom of God! We need not be paralysed and frozen by our fears, instead we can make our fears the stepping stone for our successes in future! Go for it!