What Happens When You Come Face-to-face with Your Biggest Fear?

Spoiler alert: Your biggest fear doesn’t have to get the best of you!

You might not even know you have it. Then something arises filled with all kinds of unknowns. And it’s in those unknowns where it happens. Your biggest fear raises its ugly head.

It could be that your spouse did something you never thought possible. Or maybe it’s another family member, or a child going off the deep end.

There are way too many places where life can do this to us.

Is your Known enough for you?

Maybe my brain surgery was postponed because

I needed to wrestle this out with God.

It’s happened before. God has made space for me to talk to Him about something I’d rather have ignored.

Last night, He woke me and reminded me of a fear that’s I’ve been trying to ignore. It wasn’t a surprise, but it wasn’t something I’d planned to entertain.

But since God wanted to chat, I grabbed my journal to take notes.

Evil is a really good study of mankind.

Like I said a couple of weeks ago, I’m not afraid of dying.

And Evil remembers the time we had that battle, knows where I landed. So, it has been using another fear to try to get to me this time,

what if something goes wrong during surgery?

What I’ve learned with God is this.

At the bottom of every fear I’ve had is a lie. Fear is a liar!

In this case, I wasn’t trusting God to take care of me even if something did go wrong. In Romans 8:28, it says God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love Him (NLT).

And Hebrews 11:16 says that God can’t lie.

So, think back for a minute and let God show you how He’s taken the things in your life that you thought had gone wrong, but He used them for your good.

The truth really does set us free!

Once you learn a lesson with God,
evil can’t steal your peace in that way again.

And God has access to everything.

You know when you’re in a hard place and God can get your attention like no other?

That’s where I’ve been.

Instead of ignoring Him, I’ve decided to sit at His feet and let Him deal with every single Father-filtered lesson He’s got. Because what I know is that on the other side of this surgery, a lot of these unknowns will be known.

This week, He is my Known.

And just like He worked out that fear of death, I want Him to deal with everything on the table so that the enemy has no way of using them against me again.

When you find yourself in a place like this,
what do you do?

Once again,
I became like a dog with a bone
when my pastor spoke these words,

“Fear not, only believe.”
(Mark 5:36, ASV)

Believe in what?

Believe in all those things we said we believed in before we found ourselves here. Believe that no matter what, God is with us and He loves us more than anyone else ever could!

Believe that He and I make a We and We’ve got this!

Somehow, fear not, only believe, settles me down like nothing else. I’m not sure why because it’s not like He said, “Trust Me, nothing is going to go wrong.”

But somehow, I knew these words were the life preserver God was offering.

Have you ever had God use
conversations, movies, and everything else
to communicate with you?

That’s what He did.

So, I don’t believe this was a coincidence.

I watched the movie called The Baby Dance.

Spoiler alert: The movie is about a poor couple who can’t afford another baby and a wealthy couple who sign up to adopt the baby. It’s very real as it shows the emotions of each of the parents involved.

And after the birth parents and the adoptive parents fight over everything throughout the pregnancy, neither takes the baby home.

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it, and that’s when I realized every life comes with challenges and risks.

None of us escapes that.

There’s good stuff and hard in each of our lives. And we don’t know what any given day or situation will throw at us.

As part of my battle plan,

I put on an audio on speaking out all the fear, anxiety and worry verses.

Funnily enough, what came up?

“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed–or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better and it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:41-42, NIV)

What did Mary choose? She chose to sit at His feet.

I had to laugh. I wrote an entire book on the way He Mary’d me, but again, I needed this reminder.

Today, the devotional, Jesus Calling, said:

“Hope is like a golden cord connecting you to heaven. The more you cling to this cord, the more I bear the weight of your burdens.”

It made me think of when I went bungee jumping.

Two of us went up to jump and totally freaked out. But afterwards, we were high from the experience. So much so that our other friend said, “I can’t hang out with you guys the rest of the day unless I jump, too!”

Then she gave herself into the experience, yelling, “Yahoooooooo!!”

The other two of us stood down below shaking our heads, “She had way more fun than we did!”

Dear God,
Help us to be like that!

Help us enJOY
this journey of life
You have given us,
every single part of the adventure.

Help us to fear not,
and only believe!

Fill us with Your peace
I pray, in Jesus’ name.

You Can Pray Away Your Fear!