“Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Matthew 26:41
The other day a younger soul sought out my advice about one of those moments in life where a crossroad had arisen. An intersection between the hard thing that was right and the temptation to turn away and disengage from that path because it might require difficult effort. As I listened carefully to the words being said, I mentioned, “Well, it is understandable to feel a bit afraid.” The soul looked at me with shock and a bit of indignation proclaiming, “I am not afraid!” Yet, in the response, I heard an age old truth: No really likes to admit when they are afraid.
The strong desire to deny feeling fear is exactly why it is essential to understand and explore what we are feeling. So often we convince ourselves that we are brave, and to be brave we must not feel fear. But nothing could be further from the truth. Being brave isn’t about the absence of fear, as that is not humanely possible.
We, by design, are meant to experience fear. It is hardwired into our brains, to our nerve endings, to our senses, and lastly, but not least, it is one of our emotions. In fact, feeling fear often serves a very good purpose in protecting us and alerting us to danger. More importantly, the brave are not immune to fear; they have learned how to stop it from controlling them when it should not be. The key to overcoming and controlling fear lies in the ability to recognize it for what it is. It is in understanding that you are afraid that you can gain the strength and power to control it rather than it mastering you.
With this soul, I went on to gently explain that while being afraid can mean that we feel fear directly and intensely, it also has very subtle attributes that we don’t recognize as being “afraid”. Over the course of our lives, we have learned how to suppress it, ignore it or dismiss it. Because of those lessons, we often don’t even think about distinguishing the multiple facets of fear and how or why they are truly impacting us. Things like being “filled with apprehension; feeling regret, unhappiness or the like.” Dictionary.com/afraid.
One of my new favorite identifiers from the definition is “feeling reluctance, unwillingness, distaste or the like.” Id. Oh, reluctance and unwillingness…how very fitting they were to our conversation. As I spoke those very words from the definition, that soul looked up and smiled, “Well, I guess I was feeling fear and I didn’t even know it! ‘Reluctance’ might best describe what was holding me back and I hadn’t even connected that to being afraid. I see it now.”
Now according to its definition, “afraid” has roots in “disturb and frighten”. I think it is relatively easy for us to accept and understand when something has really frightened us, but how often do you feel disturbed and never even consider that it might stem from something you fear? Let’s take a little closer look at the word, disturb:
- to interrupt the quiet, rest, peace or order of; unsettle.
- to interfere with; hinder.
- to interfere with the arrangement, order or harmony of; disarrange.
- to perplex; trouble.
- to cause disturbance to someone’s sleep, rest, etc… Id./”disturb”
You might wonder why it is important to dig down into the roots of afraid? Because it will literally help us to root out potential fear and its powerful control. If you can learn to identify that you are feeling afraid, you can trace those feelings back to their roots. Ask yourself, “Is something hindering me from moving forward with what I need to do or where I know I need to go?” Are your thoughts or peace being continually interrupted with worry or tension? Trace it back and see if there is fear at the root. Are you perplexed or troubled? Out of sorts? Disarranged? Struggling to order things in such a way that there is real and lasting harmony? Instead of dwelling on those thoughts, dig deeper and find the source of what you are feeling. Start to face what you fear by trusting God that you can, and that He will see you through it.
When you recognize that feelings of regret, apprehension, unhappiness, reluctance and unwillingness are most likely linked to fear, you can search for what is disturbing your thoughts. Sometimes we do everything we can to avoid looking at what scares us…what we fear…we wallow in procrastination, hesitation, doubt and dismay. We are so apprehensive that we cloak our fears through denial such that we don’t even realize the disturbances they are causing us internally or externally.
Think on it this way: let’s say you have an assignment or task to do at work or home that you really don’t want to do. With procrastination and reluctance in control, you push it off by putting all sorts of other tasks ahead of it. Often times, you delay focuses on things that are not as important or urgent. As a result, as your deadline approaches, you find your mind fretting in waves. Those waves lead to even more wasted time with further distraction that continues to lead you astray. As time marches on, you grow in cycles between worry and pangs of regret for not starting earlier. Think about it: those cycles are literally disturbing your thoughts and leading you into relationships with more of afraid’s friends.
Same can become true when someone hurts you. Much of the time when hurt, we try to act as if we are not. We don’t respond, afraid to be truthful or vulnerable, and later tell ourselves that “What he or she did or said shouldn’t matter” or “I don’t care!” or “Whatever, I guess.” A personal favorite is to waste mental energy on what I wished I had said…and I know I am not alone in that vain. You know, those fictional conversations where in the safety of your own mind you replay the situation and wield those perfect zingers back towards their hurtful comment or action. Why do we do that when we know they are not there and nothing is being resolved?
Most of us are flat out afraid to honestly confront someone who has hurt us emotionally or verbally (or physically…there’s a long list of ways to harm another). We ignore, snap back or dismiss, but we generally avoid being too direct, honest or vulnerable about our pain, confusion or fear. We hold back in apprehension of their reactions and the potential outcomes that might result from being honest about how they have hurt us. We justify away in our minds and imaginations just how they might react in furtherance of being unwilling or reluctant to deal with them honestly.
Too often, we let the fact that we cannot control the outcomes of being honest fuel the fear that prevents us from acting in a way that might have a better chance of mending or stopping future harm. We embrace the truth that we cannot change anyone by misusing it to prevent us from having to change ourselves or our situation. Trust me, friends, the “right” path doesn’t automatically mean that we move towards reconciliation. All those thoughts are fearful thoughts, and quite frankly, disturbances of our mental peace and space. Not only do they interfere with quietness in our minds, these thoughts do not bring about relational repair nor do they protect us from future damage. Rather, they continue to disturb and grow our fear, our unwillingness, and our unhappiness all the while keeping us hostage to that original hurt.
So the next time you find yourself feeling any of the definition or synonyms of afraid, pause. Go deeper and see how tight a hold your fear has on you. Once you find it, examine why you are feeling feeling afraid and whether it truly deserves the weight you are giving it? If it doesn’t, and it likely won’t, refuse to let it control your life, thoughts, reactions or direction any longer.
“When anxiety was great within me, Your consolation brought me joy.” Psalm 94:19
Washing My Windows 