“Why am I so afraid of everything?”
She’s a college junior, perhaps 21 or 22 years old. From my perspective, it was a great question.
“What are you afraid of?”
She blurted out a list, a litany of seemingly everything that could possibly go wrong in this young woman’s life. “Whoa,” I chuckled, “you really are afraid of everything!”
“Yes,” she replied, “and I don’t know why.”
# # #
We talked a while about why she avoided things that weren’t all that risky, weren’t very likely to happen, or didn’t have a huge downside. She wondered if she lacked courage.
I told her I thought maybe she misunderstood, that perhaps she wasn’t really very afraid of the things on her list.
“What if the thing you really fear is fear? What if you’re afraid…of being afraid?”
I think we expect “normal” life to be free of fear, so when we’re afraid we believe something’s wrong. Fear becomes something to be avoided.
But what if fear isn’t abnormal? What if it’s part of life, especially a life of doing worthwhile, meaningful work? What if we learn to expect a certain amount of fear as the price of following the dream?
The enemy would like us to avoid fear at all costs.
Jesus says, “Take courage. I am. Don’t be afraid.” He invites us to face the fear rather than allowing it to control us.
The choice, I guess, is to whom we choose to listen.
Please leave a comment here.
