Once upon a time there was girl that was afraid of a lot of things. Particularly, she was deathly terrified of haunted houses and always declined her friends’ requests to attend them when Halloween came around every year. However, one such year, the girl was a volunteer at the school’s annual Halloween festival which included a Haunted House. She did her best to avoid going through the haunted house but she was assigned to be the hostess for a group of children. She mustered her courage up and put on a brave face. “Are you all ready to begin our journey,” she timidly asked the children, ages 5-10 or so. “Yes!” they cried, eager to begin. She was incredibly embarrassed that she was afraid but she took that first step. At first everything seemed fine. She tried to stay calm and breathe deeply. Blackness filled the rooms with occasional flashes of dead bodies or zombies and of course accompanied by the screams of horror. Her pulse quickened and her knees began to get weak. Get out! She must find a way out!!
Those poor children never had a chance as fear gave way to complete terror. She galloped her way to the exit, trampling any child that got in her way. Screams of pain could be heard as she jumped, pushed and stepped on the children. Running at full speed wasn’t fast enough so she dove through the exit and flew superman style into the gym where the rest of the festival was occurring. Sliding to a halt she heard peals of laughter and snickers as she reluctantly looked up to see her classmates watching her.
Fear makes you do funny things, doesn’t it? I’m sure you guessed it, I was the girl who was afraid in that story. From my earliest years I can remember being afraid. All the time. Of silly, stupid things. My fear knew no bounds. I remember my mom once told me a story of something I said when I was very young. I overheard her telling my dad that she wrote a hot check and I screamed, “You wrote a hot check?? You are going to go to jail!!!” with tears streaming down my face. My little 4 year old heart was afraid of consequences I didn’t even fully understand yet.
All of my life most of my choices were governed by fear. I did or didn’t do something based on whether or not I was afraid of it. I missed out on many fun adventures because I was shrouded by fear. My relationship with God even reflected the anxious fear I carried in my heart. I thought I had to appease Him so that He wouldn’t punish me. I believed He only loved me if I got everything right. I was afraid of Him. And not the good, reverent kind of fear but the kind that makes you do stupid things, like slide across a gym floor in complete idiocy.
THE ROOT OF IT
What makes us afraid? I have been able to trace mine back somewhat. I went to church every Sunday, Wednesday and sometimes Tuesday night prayer meeting. Why was I still afraid? I knew Bible verses and hymns and had a good family. Still the fear. The truth is I didn’t know my Father very well, I only knew about Him. I had to get to know Him and experience life with Him. We had to go through stuff together.
When we are steeped in religion, we can’t see it. We can’t feel the tentacles of fear gripping our heart and directing our actions. Being a religious person is not necessarily bad when we have a relationship with the one we worship. It’s when we are not connected to our God in a relational way that our religious actions become an attempt to avoid punishment. The religious actions are a cloak to hide our own damaged souls. We hide, that’s what scared people do. Jesus didn’t come to create a religion; He gave up His life so we could be friends again. He said, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” John 15:13. I am in no way saying Jesus is not more than a friend; He obviously is a majestic King, worthy of all honor and glory. But He wants to be our friend. That is why we don’t have to be afraid.
PERFECT LOVE DRIVES OUT FEAR
We have arrived at something special when we are no longer chained to thoughts of terrible “what-if” scenarios. When we stop trying to control everything in our lives and refuse to always have answers to things that terrify us means we are growing in our awareness of His love. I never realized that my tight grip on everything in my life was a direct result of the fear I carried in my heart. I needed to control everything because I couldn’t trust God to do it. What a terrible way to live when we have been given free access to the heart of our Father. As I grew closer to Him and we did life together I began to notice I wasn’t afraid as much. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. I John 4:18. I think John said it best, and I’ll leave it at that.
The Girl Who Was Afraid
