Fear – A beast nary a soul hasn’t fought on cold, hard nights, as well as on warm, sunny days.

Sometimes, it has robust, outstretched arms, a long, muscular torso reaching up above you, emotionless, glassy eyes that palpitate chaos in your chest, and an uncertainty about it that forebodes doom. It wraps so fast around you, engulfing you in its pitch blackness, it’s all you can do not to scream. Like a whirlwind, you can feel it drag you down with it into bottomless pits, leaving you with no time to hold on to the recesses of consciousness in your mind.

Other times, well, other times it’s a glimpse of it, a slightly elevated heart rate, tachycardia, a change in rhythm, a peek into angst and apprehension, a sighting of the tip of the iceberg that is terror, known to sink even the most fortified ships, the greatest captains.

Walking up to a girl you like, sitting next to the guy in your 111th marital fantasy, picking up results from the doctor’s, that first thud that lets you know unwanted company has gained access into your residence, the floating space in between time when you can see an accident rapidly taking shape right in front of you…all varying degrees of the exact same feeling;

Fear. Dread. Anxiety.

There are days you can tuck it in or fold it right back into oblivion where it belongs. Those are the good days. Days when some small effort on your part can calm your beating heart.

Then there are other days when you are drowning in it, when you can’t breathe, and you can’t even make a sound. On those days you don’t have your wits about you, because your mind has shut down for survival. Only your muscle memory is active, plus your nervous system which has kicked in to save the day: Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn. Those are the only options available to you, and unbeknownst to you, you’re not the driver of the choices that will be made in this time-space continuum. You are as much an observer as everyone else around you, only with the added advantage of adrenaline and hyper-arousal.

Seconds, sometimes minutes after the incident, you’ll begin to wake up to reality. Pain in your left shoulder, a bruised knee, a dull headache. All signs that you were indeed part of an ordeal, but one which you can’t immediately recall with clarity. And sometimes, there’s no sign that you’ve been swiftly carted away from imminent harm.

And yes, this is a good thing, for the most part. It’s a gift that protects you, that keeps you safe, long enough for you to be steered away from the source of danger.

But at what point does it become an unnecessary limitation to the things you desire? A stumbling block to your destiny? Simply a derailment in your quest to conquer?

Yes, it was necessary to shield you mentally and emotionally from the physical violence meted out in your home from the drunk parent(s), the emotional abuse and neglect that you had to endure through the years, the sexual assault that left you feeling empty.

Yes, it was necessary to protect you from taking on that bully that would have pulverised you, from crossing the road in a busy intersection, from witnessing a little more than a fender bender first hand.

And yes, maybe it was even necessary to keep you from asking the wrong people for bare minimum, from leaving that intolerable situation with no plan, from taking a chance of a lifetime that could have ended badly.

But again, I ask, where do we draw line between the fear we need to keep us safe, and the one that steals from us every day, that keeps us small, that whispers obscenities about never being good enough in our ears?

Beloved, the answer lies in one man…. Jesus.

Like a light in the dead of night, He will guide you through the stormy seas, steering you clear of fear-induced decisions, leading you on bold paths for His Name’s sake.

And like a mighty lion, you will roar fearlessly in His strength, and watch anxiety shrink into nothingness before your very eyes. Only by His power, only by His might, only by His enablement will you choose to disregard the winds and the waves, keeping your eyes on Him, and proceed to walk bravely on the waters.

Look to Jesus, and don’t stop. Fix your eyes on Him only.

Then soar.