There is a blanket of fear suspended over the world today. We have all felt it at some point and some of us live with it as a constant. I have heard people say that courage is the opposite of fear. The opposite of fear is not courage.
The accepted definition of courage is: taking action despite fear. So, what is the opposite of fear and what can we do to overcome this, sometimes paralyzing, emotion?
As we travel through life, no matter who we are or where we were born, we will face challenges and hardships to varying degrees. It doesn’t help if we compare our hardships with those of someone else. It might makes us feel thankful temporarily when we realize that the things that we are facing are not as harsh as those in someone else’s life but it is not really helpful in overcoming our own personal battles, especially the one against fear.
What is helpful is the support of faithful family members and friends. But even that isn‘t the answer to overcoming the real, or imagined fears that invade the space, inside and outside our heads. Those imagined fears can feel as real as any bona fide or actual fear because it appears the brain doesn’t differentiate between them; both cause the same chemical, physiological and psychological reactions in our bodies and minds. We should probably more accurately call this kind of fear anxiety. It feels like fear but appears to be a reaction to our emotions as opposed to a reaction to actual danger in our surroundings or circumstances. Science tells us that true fear is an automatic reaction caused by a specific part of the brain. It is a protective response and by-passes conscious control so our reactions will be faster. Anxiety, which I will call fear here, because that is what it feels like, is a response to what we feel rather than a response to an actual physical danger that we need to run away or hide from.
Fear is programmed into a healthy nervous system to protect us from danger. But that is not the kind of fear many of us face on a daily basis: the fear that seems to permeate the atmosphere today. This kind of fear hovers over us whether the danger we are facing is directly in front of us or a future possibility or even something unlikely to happen. These fears take on the semblance of reality in our imaginations and that means they are real to us. Sometimes this kind of fear hides behind other names. I’m sure we’ve all faced those dressed-up, disguised faces of fear at some point in our lives. Sometimes it masks itself as hopelessness or shows up as anger, rage, fury, control or manipulation. Sometimes it looks like hate. Sometimes we don’t want to look stupid or be rejected. We don’t have to actually experience the terror of a physical attack to have these feelings of fear. This emotion can overcome us even when we are in a safe place. And as the world becomes more and more unpredictable this fearful anxiety grows, eliciting feelings of unease, nervousness, foreboding dread, panic, and terror.
The Word of God tells us that fear also comes as a spirit. 2 Timothy 1:7 says that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but one of strength, love, self-control and a sound mind. Those are 4 things that actively fight against fear. If it can come as a spirit and that NOT from God, then our weapons against it must also include spiritual ones. The Psalms are full of verses that talk about God delivering the psalmist from fear. In Isaiah 41:3 God tells His people that they should not fear because he is the one who helps them. The New Testament also instructs us not to fear. John 14:27 tells us not to let our hearts be troubled and not to be afraid.
