Does Fear/Anxiety Hold Us Back From Receiving God Wholeheartedly?

Does Fear/Anxiety Hold Us Back From Receiving God Wholeheartedly? 

YES, fear holds you back from living your life to the fullest. Everyone has fears and my personal opinion is it's ok to have fear. however, it's not okay to have fear consume your daily life. Fear can drown out the faith you have in God sometimes. Fear can be that little whisper in your head saying "I'm not ready, I'm not safe, God isn't with me, I'm going to get hurt, etc." It can be those little lies that make us step back from doing things that we need to do/want to do. I agree that there are fears that are rational such as anything that can cause immediate danger or death. 
      Another way to look at fears is anxiety, more people suffer from it than there are that don't. anxiety can shake us and break us down to feel like we're not safe at all. anxiety is a constant paranoia that can happen even when everything is going well. It causes our bodies to shake and tremble in fear of something that could happen. I speak from personal experience with anxiety. I was diagnosed when I was 13 with severe anxiety. It is a constant daily battle that is relentless. It causes me to sometimes not be able to go anywhere or be around people. It causes me to shake and be unable to tell you why I'm anxious.  
         Why do fear and anxiety consume us so much? Honestly, there's not a great answer for this but a lack of trust and faith in God.  We are often told to give it all to God, give him your every thought, and worry. As comforting as this sounds to give it all to God, it's not an instant gratification kind of situation. You don't feel immediately comforted by the thoughts being given to God because we still hang onto it. It isn't always taken out of our minds it can still be encompassed into our heads. Our heads can acknowledge that our God is going to take care of our every fear but we're still willing to put up a fight to keep fear as our own. Often times I think we do this without knowing that we do so. our minds still wrap themselves in our thoughts and that's how we can get consumed. 
        How do we free ourselves from fear and anxiety and let God in? My best answer is to fill your mind with better thoughts. If you keep on a constant record player of all your fears you're never going to hear God's reassurance. this past year I read through the entire book of psalms, it is filled with overwhelming fears but also showed how they were overcome as well. It showed that even though you can be scared out of your mind, God is still on the inside roaring like a lion. God is within you and that is why you can overcome every fear that engulfs you. God is speaking to you through one ear and fear is in the other, God has to be the one you trust because he is talking truth that combats fear. Truth be told, trusting God doesn't erase your fear but it helps give you a better perspective to view from and speaks truth into it. 
      So to answer the question yes fear holds you back from receiving God wholeheartedly because our minds trap our fear in and don't allow us to hear the God inside our hearts. Am I saying that everyone fears all the time? no, I think we go through periods of fear and peace. We have special moments where fear is taken away and we are at peace with God and everything. we have moments where we allow God in and let him show us an overwhelming sense of peace. Everything in life is a season. we have seasons of Joy, Peace, Hope, anger, sadness, fearfulness, etc, and that is perfectly okay! God can use every single one of those seasons and use it in a special way! 
   Let God take your anxious thoughts away, continue to pray for yourself or even your community. Read what God says about fear in the bible. Live your life the way God would want you to live it. Have a conversation with God tell him what's on your mind even though he already knows, He loves to hear from you. You are his child, he's eager to listen. 



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