On being a fear specialist
"We can either act on fear or we can act on faith, but we cannot act on both."
I have been a fear specialist most of my life. I didn’t think of myself in that light until I read Edward T. Welch’s book, Running Scared. He said:
“I am a fear specialist. In this I have found I am not alone. Not everyone is a fear specialist, but there is no doubt that every single person who ever lived is personally familiar with fear. It is an inescapable feature of earthly life. To deny it is . . . well . . . to deny it.”
Through the Scriptures, God often tells us not to be afraid. Some say this command is repeated 365 times but it’s not really. The exact words “fear not”, or a similar combination, are written in about 100 passages, which is still quite a lot. In many other passages we’re told what to do instead of fear. One such example is found in the book of Philippians. “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”1 [Emphasis mine.]
Truly, this is all you need in order to eliminate fear. I can say that now because I’ve done a lot of fear elimination work. However, as Rob Reimer’s Soul Care book shows, it’s not as simple as that statement implies. There is typically a lot of junk underlying our fears. We have to get out their roots for true healing. That takes work.
Going through the soul care work many times helped me a lot, but even before that I started doing Splankna healing. For me, that work was an essential step. It helped me to see how much of a fear specialist I was. Once some of the fear was replaced with peace I began to see how much fear had been ruling my life and could take the next steps to re-order things according to God’s design, to stop being “anxious about anything but” . . . .
In Soul Care Principle #6, Fear, Rob teaches that fear is a vulnerable emotion. As such, it hides. And as with anything that hides, if it hides well it’s hard to find, especially if you don’t know what you’re looking for. That’s what happened to me.
Prior to the work I did to uncover and eliminate fear, I would have said that I was mostly fearless. I traveled and frequently did things most women wouldn’t dream of, even though I dealt with a flying phobia and had been prone to panic attacks. I thought I was doing just fine.
But that’s the problem when you compare yourself to most people instead of to God’s standard. He has unique expectations for each of us. He also doesn’t grade on a curve. If he says to fear not, he means it.
I may have acted fearless, but I clearly was in denial. In order to master our enemies, we have to face them. But first we have to recognize them.
Rob said he didn’t recognize his fear at first. He felt power or anger or he could feel when his mind was flooded with adrenaline, but he never saw it as fear.
“I didn’t recognize that there was fear underneath. . . .I had grown up with separation anxiety; those were just normal feelings for me. There were times I was obsessed with imaginary conversations because of conflict, but I didn’t associate those with fear. . . . But those where just symptomatic expressions, and underneath it was fear diseasing my soul.”
He said it’s important to “recognize when the adrenaline gets kicked into your body,” the classic “fight” or “ flight” reactions. He said flight is the need to escape and may include: “fantasy, withdrawal, shutting down, turning inward, passive aggressive behavior or physically withdrawing.”
Fight is the need to become aggressive and may include defensiveness, anger, ramping up the intensity of a conversation, attacking others or controlling behaviors.”
For me, flight is a big one. I used to move a lot (more than 50 addresses in my life time) but I also withdraw, turn inward, read or use other coping mechanisms. Fight happens too, in most of the ways he gave as examples.
I’m guessing most of us can see ourselves in at least some of these examples some of the time. Otherwise our Creator wouldn’t have said to us, “Fear not.” Or told us what to do when we’re experiencing fear.
Rob said “We can either act on fear or we can act on faith, but we cannot act on both. We can feel afraid and act on faith, but we cannot act on both. We must choose.”
Today, I still think of myself as a specialist in fear, but only because I do a much better job of both recognizing it and dealing with it.
What’s your relationship with fear?
By the way, Rob just posted his soul care conference schedule if anyone is interested in attending one (maybe there will be one near you). It’s available by clicking here.
He also is currently offering a free online mini course on forgiveness, available by clicking here, if you are struggling with that topic and want some help. If you’ve never experienced Rob’s teaching “live” before, this is a great way to see his style.
Philippians 4:6 [ESV]