The moment I spotted the black-and-white beetle scuttling across the kitchen floor, I took off running as if the starting shot for a 100-meter dash had just sounded. A surge of adrenaline propelled me to the bathroom, where I grabbed a handful of toilet paper. Then I raced back to the kitchen, used the toilet paper to scoop up the insect’s creepy, crunchy body, hightailed it back to the bathroom, hurled the beetle into the toilet, and flushed. Whew! Another beetle vanquished.
This incident was just one of many similar beetle-exterminating episodes I endured in the first year of living in my current home. My husband and I hadn’t lived here long before I noticed that there seemed to be a lot of beetles around. It wasn’t terrible—I didn’t see one every day—but still, it wasn’t uncommon to find one lurking in the kitchen. I found this distressing because I hate beetles. For whatever reason, they disgust me more than any other bugs native to my region (my disdain for beetles is so great I once wrote a poem about my hatred for them—granted, I was in high school, so everything was dramatic back then).
But while the beetles troubled me, I’ve dealt with another infestation that has come with higher stakes and caused even bigger problems: Fear. And just as the beetles came with my house and were present from when I moved in, the specter of fear has haunted me since the earliest days of my life. Over the years, I’ve struggled with fear of the dark, fear of flying, fear of being unattractive, fear of speaking up and using my voice, fear of rejection, fear of losing a loved one, fear of disease, fear of making the wrong decision, fear of missing out, and fear of messing up. Fear has tempted me to stay put, cancel plans, keep quiet, and settle for less than God’s best, and if I had let it, fear would have forced me into living a very isolated, ineffective life.
Thankfully, instead of giving in, I’ve chosen to fight back. Doing so hasn’t been easy, but it has been worth it. With God’s help, I’ve overcome much of the fear in my life, and I feel so much more free, calm, and confident now than I did in my teens and twenties.
How about you? Do you struggle with fear? If so, I hope you choose to fight it too! God has a beautiful purpose and plan for your life, and He’s placed something special in you that only you can offer. If you want to overcome fear and courageously move into all God has for you, here are five things that have helped me on my fear-fighting journey:
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In 1 John 4:18, the Apostle John tells us that “perfect love casts out all fear. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear” (NIV). This verse makes it clear that God’s love is the ultimate antidote for fear, but how do we go about experiencing more of God’s love? I’ve found that simply asking is one of the best places to start, and one of my favorite ways to ask is to pray Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians, found in Ephesians 3:17-19 (TLB): “I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts, living within you as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love; and may you be able to feel and understand, as all God’s children should, how long, how wide, how deep, and how high his love really is; and to experience this love for yourselves, though it is so great that you will never see the end of it or fully know or understand it.”
Long ago, I wrote a personalized version of this prayer on a sticky note and attached it to my bathroom mirror so I can pray it regularly. Jesus promised that if we ask, we will receive, and God has been so faithful to answer my prayer! As my experience of His love has grown, fear’s hold on my heart has diminished, and I have no doubt that He can perform the same work in you!
Fear is a feeling, but since it also often presents itself as thoughts, one of the biggest ways we can fight fear is to replace fearful thoughts with God’s truth.
Here’s how this might look:
Fearful thought: I’m going to fail.
Fighting back by reminding yourself of God’s truth: The Bible says that God leads me to triumph through Christ (2 Corinthians 2:14).
Fearful thought: I don’t know what to do…I’m afraid this problem will never be solved.
Fighting back by reminding yourself of God’s truth: God says that He will give me wisdom (James 1:5-8) and lead me into all truth (John 16:13).
Fearful thought: What if I get in an accident?
Fighting back by reminding yourself of God’s truth: God says He will order His angels to protect me wherever I go (Psalm 91:11).
The Bible tells us that “no weapon forged against you will prevail, and you will refute every tongue that accuses you” Isaiah 54:17 (NIV). No matter what lie fear is trying to feed you, you can find truth in God’s Word to refute it.
I once heard Christian teacher Joyce Meyer exhort her listeners to “Do it afraid.” The idea was simply to not let fear stop you—just to do whatever you need to do regardless of how you feel. Given my propensity to fear, I have had many opportunities to apply this advice. One memorable example comes from my college days:
In order to graduate, I was required to complete a communications course. So, dutifully, I signed up for Communications 121. I knew this would be a challenging class because it required giving speeches—something I wasn’t crazy about. But it wasn’t until the instructor handed out the syllabus at the first class that I realized the number of speeches that would be required of me. As reality sunk in, my initial unease exploded into full-blown panic. The terror I felt is similar to what I imagine I would feel if I walked through the woods and bumped into a black bear.
Yet the fact remained: The only way I was walking across the stage with my diploma was if I first walked to the front of the classroom. And I really wanted to earn my degree. So, I did it, afraid. (Full disclosure: I did end up switching to a group communication course, where I would have the support of a small group for most of my speeches.) And guess what? Despite the undeniable awkwardness of my speeches, I survived—and eventually graduated.
Pushing past fear not only enabled me to reach an important milestone but through this and other experiences of “doing it afraid,” I also discovered an important principle: When you confront your fear, usually, in time, it shrinks. Later, as a graduate student, I was again required to give presentations, and each time I did so, my fear of talking in public lessened a bit. Since then, I’ve gone on to give talks at women’s events, and I even regularly share announcements in front of my whole church on Sunday mornings, all without feeling like I’m going to die. In fact, I now enjoy it!
If you’re struggling with fears related to an action you need to take, I encourage you to do it afraid. Remember: Fear is designed to hold you back from God’s best for you. It wants to keep you small and stop you from achieving your goals. But the truth is, fear can’t stop you from doing anything. You have the power through Christ to courageously push past it and step into all God is calling you to do. As you do, you will find that fear fades, peace blossoms, and your confidence grows.
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Once while attending an out-of-state conference, I stayed in a cottage behind a friend’s house. While I was thankful for my lodgings, for the first several nights there, I was plagued with fear of someone breaking in and harming me. Logically, I knew that a break-in was extremely unlikely, yet the fear was intense and I couldn’t seem to shake it.
On one of the last nights of the conference, a woman who was helping with the event offered to pray for me. In the course of our conversation, I explained the fear I was feeling, and she taught me something that helped. She told me to say, “Fear, I see you, I reject you, and I command you to go.”
Though this action is biblical—God’s Word tells us to resist the devil, and he will flee (James 4:7)—no one had ever taught me to command fear to leave like this. After we prayed together, I did as she suggested and commanded the fear to go. Almost immediately, I felt significant relief, and that night I slept peacefully for the first time all week.
The next time you’re confronted with a fear, call it out and tell it to leave. You might be surprised at how quickly you find peace.
You know those beetles I mentioned earlier? Well, the family who lived in the house before my husband and I moved in had two dogs, and I determined that the beetles had likely originated in the kibble the previous owners fed their furry friends. Though I was finding beetles off and on for months, eventually they disappeared because their primary food source was removed when the former residents departed.
Fear is like dog-food-fed beetles: It grows when fed and shrinks when starved. What feeds fear? For me, it’s certain types of books, movies, and news articles. For example, while I love mystery novels and movies, I’m careful to avoid indulging in ones that contain graphic scenes of violence because if I do, I might have trouble sleeping and may even have nightmares.
What feeds your fears? How can you limit your exposure to them? Instead of filling your mind with fear-inducing stories and images, fix your mind “on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable” (Philippians 4:8, NLT).
Fear wants to shut you up and shut you down, but it doesn’t have the final say in your life. Instead of giving in to fear, you can soak in God’s love, trust His guidance, and courageously keep pushing ahead into all He has for you!
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Originally published Monday, 03 October 2022.
