Fear

Fear is to the enemy what Faith is to God.

Fear is when belief agrees with the “what if” of the enemy

I am sure you are familiar with the story of the Israelites coming out of slavery to the Egyptians. I have always looked at this portion of the Bible from the perspective of the Israelites. who were enslaved to this taskmaster, Pharoah. However, I saw something different studying it this time around. In chapter one, Pharoah feared IF the Israelites would develop an alliance with their enemies they would over take him and his kingdom. God asked me how many times I had thought like a Pharoah in my own life. You know, creating a situation in my own mind with a hundred different “what if’s” and living life from that place, as if my “what ifs” were true. Because of Pharoah’s hypothesizing the situation, he made slaves out of the Israelites and in turn, enslaved himself to his fear that ultimately led to his own hardness of heart. I didn’t realize until reading this, that operating in those fears often runs the risk of enslaving others. An entire nation was enslaved due to one mans fear.

Pharaohs own unbridled thoughts lead him to fear and while operating in that fear, he refused he became unreasonable. He became a slave to his fear, and caused great suffering for the Israelites as well as the Egyptians. I’ve been guilty of allowing fear to make me wonder “what if” on many occasions, Playing different scenarios out over and over in my mind. The Bible says that perfect love casts out fear. I’m not saying there isn’t a healthy fear….fear of running into traffic or wrestling a bear….those are things that demonstrate a healthy fear and honestly, some common sense. I’m talking about the irrational fear. You’ve seen the meme floating around that shows different scenarios of what is happening in a moms mind when a kid doesn’t answer their phone. Our mind immediately assumes the worst. If Someone doesn’t speak to me, I immediately fear that they are mad or is there something wrong. The list goes on….someone doesn’t answer my text, I said something that someone took wrong, a problem at work, with my kids……..Instead of asking all the “what if” questions, we get to choose! We can bring those fears to Jesus, take off the “what if” mentality, and put on the mind of Christ so we may walk in His love, purposefully rejecting fear. Today I thank God that He continues to set me free from fear and replace it with his perfect love.