I’m Afraid

By: Missionary Team

Fear, this is an all too familiar term to use. Everyone is afraid at times. Even the people that seem to be the bravest are afraid. Heck, I act like I'm super courageous all the time, but deep down I'm usually shaking in my britches. There is something that I want to bring up about fear though. This author, Zig Ziglar said once, "F-E-A-R has two meanings: 'Forget Everything And Run,' or 'Face Everything And Rise.' The choice is yours." I want to expound on these two meanings and what they mean to me.

'Forget Everything And Run,'
You see something that grips away at people is fear. Everyone is afraid of something, whether it's spiders, or the dark, we all have something that scares us. But when something comes about that scares us, we are given a choice.

It's like our fight or flight instinct. What seems to happen a lot is that we run from our fears, we hide from them, we never stand up to them. What I found the most interesting about the quote from Zig Ziglar is that it says "Forget everything". Find this intriguing because that does happen all the time. When we are scared and we don't want to deal with whatever frightened us, we forget about it.

We maybe forget about the job that we had so that we don't have to think about what scared us. We forget about our promises if we maybe promised to protect someone or help them but fear stopped us. Fear puts us at a halt, it stops us dead in our tracks. And the immediate reaction we have when fear sets in is we run.

Think about Simba from the Lion King. When he saw that his dad died, he was filled with fear. Scar, his evil Uncle, tells him to run. Simba runs for his life and forgets everything that happened. Like heck, he forgets he has a dad pretty much. But that is what fear does if we allow it to enter our hearts. We lose reasoning, and instead pretty much dip into madness.

'Face Everything And Rise.'
“When life gets tough, you get tougher.” That's an age-old quote and I bet that's what helped inspire Zig Ziglar to say what he said about fear. What it means to face everything is to stand up to it, even though your knees are knocking against each other, you still stand tall and look fear in the eye and say, "No, you will not overtake me!" You see fear can either weaken you or strengthen you.

For me, what I like to think about is maybe a burglar breaking into your home. You can either let fear set in and hide or you can stand up and fight. You can let the same fear that would make you run away be the driving force that lets you protect what needs to be protected. If we look back to the Lion King, Simba fights Scar, even though he is afraid.

But he non the less faces his uncle and rises above him. And this is the most important part of the quote from Zig Ziglar, and that is the word "Rise". You cannot overcome the obstacle that is tearing you down by simply facing it. When you come across it, you must rise. Fear will knock you down, but it matters not if you fall, but rather if you rise up again.

Jesus rose from the dead, and let me put it this way, everyone was scared when Jesus died,(save for His mother Mary, but that's just because she is awesome!) Amidst all this fear, Jesus faced death and rose, bringing victory and joy! Do not let fear stop you or deter you; instead let it give you the driving force to try harder, and to want victory! Always remember if you are feeling discouraged, God gives us courage, not fear. So that means you can trust God when you feel afraid.