Once my fear is triggered, everything feels ready to crash down around me. If one area seems out of control, ALL areas feel out of control and I run for cover.
I even start to plan for things that might happen. Maybe a health crisis will strike (**cough** coronavirus). Maybe my marriage will get shaky. Maybe my kids will get hurt. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Then, I seek reassurance and peace in places other than God.
People. Books. Essential oils. Naps.
Really, I am internally just grasping for some solid ground to stand on until my anxiety dissipates enough to see things clearer. Until I can remember that God has us in his righteous right hand, and nothing is too big or scary for him.
Believing that God has good things for me, and loves me, is tough to do when I am freaking out about things. He suddenly seems far away and uninvolved. Invisible.
And that is when fear sets in.
Some say fear is “False Evidence Appearing Real.”
Some say it is a lack of faith.
Some say it is a result of trauma.
Some say it is a gift because sometimes there actually IS a wolf chasing you.
I just say it sucks. And I want to get it out of my life.
God told us not to fear, so he must know that we can see victory in this area.
When I read Psalms, I see that fear is no modern problem. And David spoke a lot about his fears, both imagined and real. He knew what it was to fear, and he knew what it was to trust.
In a message Tim Keller preached about anxiety, he used this quote by a man named Ernest Becker, who said, “I think that taking life seriously means something such as this: that whatever man does on this planet has to be done in the lived truth of the terror of creation, of the grotesque, of the rumble of panic underneath everything. Otherwise, it is false.”
I so relate to that, “A rumble of panic underneath everything.” Sometimes I have days where I feel that rumble of panic beneath the surface. Nobody would know it, but it is there.
Tim Keller goes on to say that most books about anxiety tell us to just “visualize a good outcome.” But, he points out that King David did not do that. He prayed all of his worst fears before God. He went there. He imagined the worst possible situations and cried out to God for help. Even in the imagined fears. But David always knew how to bring it back around, didn’t he? He flipped out, but somehow, he ended up trusting in his God for safety.
