Fear Forfeits Your Future
October, the month of scary ghosts, goblins, and ghouls. It’s the one time of year when fear runs rampant. Weekends dedicated to scary movies, haunted houses, tales of the crypt and urban legends told around a bonfire. The battle of who can withstand and who will succumb to being the most afraid. Without delving into the debate of the shoulds and shouldn’ts of “Halloween’, I do want to narrow in on the spirit of fear and how it tends to grip our hearts year round and not just once a year.
Fear reminds me of Mystique from X-Men. It’s fluid. It takes the form and shape of our most hidden and unspoken thoughts. It disguises itself in the familiar...people, places and things. It’s entrancing allure sways us like a pendulum. Sometimes, fear waits in silence for the opportune time to jump out and boldy provoke us for a reaction. Though fear is not the master of death, it cannot take away our life so instead it seeks to take away our livelihood.
Fear manifests in a multitude of ways and in different areas of our life; but it only has one goal - to delay, destruct and ultimately destroy our future. I mean, think about it. The concept of fear is a negative anticipation of something that has not yet to occur with slim probabilities of it ever doing so. Fear likes to get us cornered without a route for escape, but rope just long enough to make sure we don’t progress from where we are. This is where worry, anxiety, frustration, distrust, isolation begin to take root. How often do we procrastinate, stall, avoid, literally try everything to circumvent facing what we think scares us. We’d rather play it safe or ignore the situation altogether and direct our attention elsewhere.
Are you content living life like this? The height of our success, the extension of our freedom is capped by the scope and limitations of our control. There’s so much more on the other side of the unknown. And we can be confident in this because God is ruler in and over all. God has touched everything in our path to work in alignment to His will and for your good. When we really begin to live like we trust God with our lives, we relieve ourselves of the pressure to make it all happen on our own.
So, how do we get to this place of freedom and living in abandonment of fear? We need strategy. Yes, strategy against fear. Why? Because fear has a full tactical strategy against us.
To go to battle with the enemy, it’s critical to accurately identify: who is the enemy, what it is their after and how they plan to take it. This is how you stay steps ahead. Chess not checkers.
Identify the Enemy
Fear in the Greek translation is derived from the word “phobos” which means to “flee or withdraw’.
What is the Enemy After
Essentially, the purpose of fear is to scare us to forfeit our destiny, remove ourselves from the place and sure standing of our future.
What is the Enemy’s Strategy
The American definition of fear is “an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.”
Let’s park here and unpack this. Fear is rooted in “emotional belief”. Now, this is tricky...no treats (I love unintended puns, lol). Emotions are influenced by life’s experiences, both good and bad, and can be easily triggered or remain dormant. We house these emotions in our heart and record them in the registry of our minds. These mental records become the influence to our habits, patterns and behaviors. We know emotions are faulty and can cloud clear judgement. Then how much more dangerous is it to live out a “belief” built on such an unstable foundation. Fear is an unsubstantiated belief system that challenges the knowledge and authority of who God is. If fear can infiltrate our hearts, it can set up camp in our thoughts and dictate what we think and how we interact. Fear is a tool of the enemy to sabotage our identity and forfeit our future.
Could this be why Proverbs urges us to guard our hearts and why Paul petitions us to guard our minds? The final piece of strategy is scripture.
Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. Proverbs 4:23
We refute arguments and theories and reasonings and every proud and lofty thing that sets itself up against the [true] knowledge of God; and we lead every thought and purpose away captive into the obedience of Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:5
For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace. Romans 8:6
These are just a few strategies that can be deployed to battle against fear. While playing with fear can be fun and games for some, it could mean life and death for your destiny. Be courageous, intentional and prayerful because fear does NOT have authority or victory over you!