Overcoming Fear

OVERCOMING FEAR

It’s been said that everybody is afraid of something; whether it be heights, spiders, the dark or something else. If you Google phobias you’ll see that people can be afraid of just about anything. Having a fear or phobia is debilitating. You have TV shows like Fear Factor, where people face their fears. It takes courage to do that. In fact, you can't overcome your fears unless you have courage. But it takes more than courage to truly overcome your fears.

1) Courage helps us to overcome our fears.

When Moses was passing the torch to Joshua and calling upon him to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land he told them in Deut. 31:6, "Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”

In vss. 7-8 he reiterated this specifically to Joshua. Moving the Israelites into Canaan without Moses was a scary situation. God knew they needed courage in order to overcome their fears. So he assured them that he would be with them all the way. But we need to keep in mind that courage doesn't mean the absence of fear.

Eddie Rickenbacker said, “Courage is doing what you are afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you are afraid.” It makes sense. If I have no fear there's no need for courage. Courage is evidence that there is fear. We’re not brave until we are first afraid.

The book Cradles of Eminence produced a revealing study involving 413 "famous and exceptionally gifted people who have helped change the world.” The author spent years attempting to understand what produced such greatness; to find a common thread that ran through all of these exceptional lives. Surprisingly, the most outstanding fact was that virtually all of them had to overcome personal fears associated with great suffering or failure in order to become who they were.

If courage is absent then fear will continue to debilitate us. Courage is an action word. Yes, it needs to be in my heart but it's not really courage if there's no action that follows.

Getting back to Joshua remember when the spies were sent out to explore the land of Canaan and all except for Joshua and Caleb were afraid of the huge people they saw there and the fearful report they brought back caused the rest of the Israelites to not be willing to move forward. So now, it's time to head into the land of Canaan and do what should've been done 40 years ago.

Joshua could courageously move forward but that didn't mean he was fearless. But God wanted him to not allow any fear he might have of leading everyone into the Promised Land to stop him from moving forward, like it did for the Israelites before. Be strong and courageous and don't be afraid to do what I'm telling you to do.

Courage is needed to overcome our fears and do what God wants us to do. Paul talked about this in Phil. 1:14, "Because of my chains, most of the brothers in the Lord have been encouraged to speak the word of God more courageously and fearlessly."

Paul's imprisonment for the gospel caused great concern among the other Christians. If they continued to preach the good news would they end up in prison too? But something wonderful happened. They weren't debilitated by Paul's imprisonment, they became motivated by it. They went out and preached the word despite their fears and Paul commends them.

Sometimes when we're afraid of something we come to a point when we decide we're not going to allow our fear to debilitate us any longer. We feel encouraged to face it courageously and fearlessly.

The Philippians' courage helped them to overcome their fears. The courage of Joshua and the Israelites enabled them to overcome their fears and advance to the Promised Land. If we're going to move forward and overcome our fears we are going to need to be courageous despite our fears.

2) Trusting God will help us overcome our fears.

Prov. 29:25, “Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe.”

Solomon says fear of man will prove to be a snare. When we fear man, we'll become trapped. We will do what they say; we will concede to their demands.

Also, if we feel threatened, we may alter our lives to accommodate that fear. Not that we shouldn't take threats seriously, but when we live in fear we become ensnared by it. We won't leave the house, we'll be paranoid all the time, we'll jump at every little creaking sound; etc. But when we trust in the Lord, we can be safe. Not that we tempt fate, but we can have the confidence to not be crippled by fear.