Fear is a terrible descriptive of an emotion. I think we have used the word fear as a broad brush to cover up the emotions that we are really feeling, because it takes work to get into the nitty gritty details of what we are actually feeling. Fear has become a substitute for intimate dialogue. People back away from conversation when we resolve our emotions to fear.
Is it really fear though, are you truly afraid?
Could it be apprehension? Nervousness? Uncomfortable? awkwardness? Unfamiliarity? Reserve?
You see those words and emotions take time to dive into and delve into and it requires a prying beneath the surface into the intimate crawl spaces locked away in the recesses of our hearts.
Processing emotions and feelings and thoughts is a raw and bloody en-devour often leaving one with more work to do than answers to grasp.
Maybe we resort to labeling it fear and calling ourselves afraid because it is not the situation we are afraid of, it is opening up our hearts to dissect the true feelings and emotions that strikes fear into us and causes us to be afraid.
Maybe we destroy relationships and keep friends at an arms length resorting to online community and skin deep revelations to protect ourselves from discovering ourselves.
Maybe we busy ourselves with activities instead of progress and noise instead of silence out of fear of quiet moments alone with our thoughts and the leading of the Holy Spirit of God.
If we can't hear him we tell ourselves we don't have to follow him.
If we don't have time we tell ourselves we don't need to listen.
Maybe the fear we feel is an indication that we desperately need perfect love.
“ There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. ”
Maybe the fear we feel is due to the fact that we don't understand the goodness of the Father.
Maybe we think that he is waiting for an opportunity to tell us that we are failures. Or that we will never make it. Or that we aren't worth it.
Those feelings create fear in our hearts of the Father all because we misunderstand his character, not because they are true.
Fear keeps us from the thing we need the most.
Face fear. Choose to believe that the character of God is good, and that He is a good Dad, who gives good gifts to His kids.
Maybe, just maybe then, we would crawl into the recesses of our hearts to face the real things stirring in us and we would boldly delve into conversation with the Holy Spirit of God to grow and mature and move on.