Fear

Fear

When I was a child, physically. I still am mentally. I remember the biggest fear I had. Mom could freeze me in my tracks with this one phrase.

Wait until you daddy comes Home!

Later In school, I believe the phrase “Take out a blank piece of paper and a pencil” would make my face turn pale.

Now as a grown up I tend to be afraid of a lot more things. Experience is a good teacher. When the phone ringing late at night. Not really the phone but the potential conversation. I fear the bills, taxes, Youth Lock in’s, and Traffic in Atlanta.

So, what are you afraid of? Snakes, heights, spiders, enclosed spaces?

Columnist Dave Barry wrote "All of us are born with a set of instinctive fears--of falling, of the dark, of lobsters, of falling on lobsters in the dark, or speaking before a Rotary Club, and of the words "Some Assembly Required."

Have you seen the show FEAR FACTOR? To be honest I have not watched the show all the way through. I think the concept bothers me. The way it works it began with six contestants, three guys and three girls. And it would appear that these contestants must first pass through a whole series of interviews to make sure that ugly people don’t get on the show. During the hour these people will compete to see who will win the $50,000.00 prize.

Since last June the contestants have jumped between moving trucks, have leapt out of twelve stories buildings, bobbed for plums in a tub of snakes and been buried in 300,000 worms. Add to that they’ve eaten all kinds of disgusting things.

I did not realize that I was afraid of something’s until I saw the commercials.

I don’t think I would make to the first commercial break if I were on the show. I am scared of heights. Well not height but falling, scared of snakes to a fairly high degree and really my idea of exotic foods is putting hot sauce on my hamburger.

I believe, fear will always be with us, it’s one of the base emotions along with hunger, love and hate, and it’s not just limited to the human animal but is instinctive and crosses throughout the animal kingdom. I think that you could say that fear is a gift from God, because it keeps us alive. *****

For most of us fear plays a part in the way we do things everyday. It may be in how we act around other people- so they don’t just kill us. It may be the way we drive to how we use power tools – safety first. It probably influences us on the places we shop and the friends we have – we want to feel safe. Every part of our life can be influenced by how we deal with FEAR.

The Bible talks about fear, the word fear is mentioned 266 times and the word afraid is mentioned 223 times. ( I love electronic bible resources.) Let me read all those to you now. (Just kidding ) The first time fear is mentioned is in Genesis and the last time it’s seen is Revelation. So much for bible statistics. That is the in the beginning and the end….

Most of the encounters with a Holy beings start with the statement do not fear. Even the hardy people of the olden days had fear in their lives. And God was always trying to calm the people he spoke with down so they could listen and understand to his message.

The general point is that fear is part of our survival instinct. We need fear to make us feel uncomfortable in certain situations so we will get out of them. Fear is not unnatural or unhealthy.

I found a list of Phobias – Fears that were listed in a medical book. That I thought were interesting and many were strange: ( could not pronounce the medical names)

Fear of failure.

Fear of dancing

Fear of plants

Fear of dust.

Fear of walking.

Fear of looking up.

Fear of England, English culture, etc.

Fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth

Fear of opening one’s eyes.

Fear of bald people

There are over 500 phobias defined medically. When something becomes a phobia, it means we have let our healthy fear that protects our lives, become something that keeps us from living. Many people have fears that become phobias.

My sister has a phobia about spiders. If she sees one anywhere. She goes into panic, screams and runs and generally acts crazy. From the way she acts I am afraid she will crash her car someday if when sees one on the window or floor board.

Most of the time we learn to automatically use our natural fear otherwise we would probably not be here tonight. We would be hiding in our homes afraid to be seen or use a car or even be with other people.