As parents we can tend to be overprotective. We fear what might happen if our little ones are left alone on the monkey bars. We are afraid when they start to learn to ride a bike on their own. Fear of them falling down, scraping a knee or perhaps breaking a leg or arm. Fear of them not being careful enough, or as much as we would like for them to be. When they do fall down, we rush to make sure they are OK.
There seems to be a thin line between wanting our kids to grow up and fearing they will grow up too fast. We try to help them be selective with their friends as they get older. When they are ready to hang out with friends we want to know where they are going, for how long and what time they will be back. Dating is a whole different ball game, especially if you have a daughter. Your pretty choosy about who she should see. Not all of these things are bad but when done out of fear, they betray an underlying motive that we were never meant to carry.
As adults, in our everyday lives we tend to fear things like deadlines, the traffic on the commute, the length of time between paydays. We fear being honest in our relationships for fear of hurting the other person or having them turn away from us. Oh, we would never call those things fear. Just worry or stress or some other word meant to deflect us from the truth of what we really do feel deep down. If we are honest with ourselves, the common denominator of these words is that they are all offspring of FEAR. Fear keeps us frozen, afraid to move forward. Afraid to take a job in a new field. Afraid to try again at a relationship. Afraid to move forward with something God has given you the desire to do.
In Matthew 8:23-27, Jesus and His disciples got into a boat to cross the Sea of Galilee. Suddenly, a fierce storm rose up with waves crashing into and onto the boat and the disciples started to panic. Meanwhile, Jesus is asleep, his head on a cushion. They went and woke Him up. They start shouting “Don't you even Care that we're drowning?” (Mark 4:38). Jesus wakes up and calms the storm by telling the wind and the waves to be still. He turns to the disciples and asks why they were afraid and comments about their having little faith or no faith (Mark 4:40). And so, as He calms our fears, He asks, Why were you afraid? Where is your faith? And we say to ourselves, Who is this man, that He can calm the storms, calm the fears in our life?
Fighting Fear is not an easy task but it is one that we can get a handle on. One of the biggest things for me seems to be to recognize it for what it is, a lack of Trust in My Savior, and not the more pleasant words that I'd like to use. Trying to call it something else makes me reduce it to something manageable (or at least I think it is). So I have had to call a spade a spade and recognize that I need help dealing with it. The Help of course comes from the Lord, which is the first step to getting the right Help. By inviting Him in to whatever is troubling me is the key to unlocking the door to Peace. Fact is, if it concerns me, then it concerns Him.
The disciples realized, and we should too, that He is in the boat with us. He is in the storm with us- the crisis, the thing that we are so afraid of doing. The conversation that we don't want to have with that individual who makes it so hard to talk to. The fear of the unknown, the pressure and stress that we carry ourselves rather than place on Him, the Only One who can whisper, Peace, Be still. Fight the Fear by letting the Master of the Sea handle the things that terrify you. Place them in His capable Hands, the Hands that hold the world and also your heart.
There seems to be a thin line between wanting our kids to grow up and fearing they will grow up too fast. We try to help them be selective with their friends as they get older. When they are ready to hang out with friends we want to know where they are going, for how long and what time they will be back. Dating is a whole different ball game, especially if you have a daughter. Your pretty choosy about who she should see. Not all of these things are bad but when done out of fear, they betray an underlying motive that we were never meant to carry.
As adults, in our everyday lives we tend to fear things like deadlines, the traffic on the commute, the length of time between paydays. We fear being honest in our relationships for fear of hurting the other person or having them turn away from us. Oh, we would never call those things fear. Just worry or stress or some other word meant to deflect us from the truth of what we really do feel deep down. If we are honest with ourselves, the common denominator of these words is that they are all offspring of FEAR. Fear keeps us frozen, afraid to move forward. Afraid to take a job in a new field. Afraid to try again at a relationship. Afraid to move forward with something God has given you the desire to do.
In Matthew 8:23-27, Jesus and His disciples got into a boat to cross the Sea of Galilee. Suddenly, a fierce storm rose up with waves crashing into and onto the boat and the disciples started to panic. Meanwhile, Jesus is asleep, his head on a cushion. They went and woke Him up. They start shouting “Don't you even Care that we're drowning?” (Mark 4:38). Jesus wakes up and calms the storm by telling the wind and the waves to be still. He turns to the disciples and asks why they were afraid and comments about their having little faith or no faith (Mark 4:40). And so, as He calms our fears, He asks, Why were you afraid? Where is your faith? And we say to ourselves, Who is this man, that He can calm the storms, calm the fears in our life?
Fighting Fear is not an easy task but it is one that we can get a handle on. One of the biggest things for me seems to be to recognize it for what it is, a lack of Trust in My Savior, and not the more pleasant words that I'd like to use. Trying to call it something else makes me reduce it to something manageable (or at least I think it is). So I have had to call a spade a spade and recognize that I need help dealing with it. The Help of course comes from the Lord, which is the first step to getting the right Help. By inviting Him in to whatever is troubling me is the key to unlocking the door to Peace. Fact is, if it concerns me, then it concerns Him.
The disciples realized, and we should too, that He is in the boat with us. He is in the storm with us- the crisis, the thing that we are so afraid of doing. The conversation that we don't want to have with that individual who makes it so hard to talk to. The fear of the unknown, the pressure and stress that we carry ourselves rather than place on Him, the Only One who can whisper, Peace, Be still. Fight the Fear by letting the Master of the Sea handle the things that terrify you. Place them in His capable Hands, the Hands that hold the world and also your heart.
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