Fear is often talked as being opposite of love.  I don’t find that to be true.   The thing about fear is that it doesn’t believe. It assumes the position of doomsday around the corner and prepares you for it, to the point where if it is successful, it’ll stop you entirely.  Not even in your tracks, but all together. A fear powerful enough makes time stand still. Motion cease. A capture of a moment where all ceases to function.  And this is captured not just in your outward appearance, but in your body, a snapshot of time frozen.  As if stopping will somehow stop the ‘bad’ from happening.  Fight, Flight, Freeze.

Yet, even in its place, frozen and action ceased, the heart still beats.  The breath still goes.  There is still life.  There is still love.   Fear itself is not death.  It only pretends to be.  Underneath Life still continues. Love still continues.  When we make a conscious choice to stop, because of a fear, we are choosing death.  Even if it’s a slow death. But God doesn’t.

  When we make the choice to let fear change our actions, we choose death over Life

Which is why you experience fear in the first place. It’s an invitation to go deeper.  To dismantle what you think you know.  What you think is true.

Even in places where the body is frozen in trauma, Life still has a way of doing what needs to be done with your body in order to save you through automatic reactions, compensations and adaptions – things that you are not conscious of – to allow life to thrive in any way it can.

And yet, the decision of what you do next, is entirely yours.  Your action shows you.  What you believe.  What you allow.  How much you trust in the One that runs everything.  How much are willing to receive the love that is showered upon you in every given moment.

Fear is an invitation to go deeper.  To dismantle what you think you know about Life.

At the end of the day, fear itself isn’t even real. We hear that often. Just as in darkness itself isn’t real.  But rather the effects of dimming of Light and Faith. We experience these effects and call it something else as if to make it a real thing, when really, within itself, it has no substance. If anything, it goads and bullies us into stopping our own lives. Stopping the fullness of life that God wants to rain on us.

The experience of it, this perceived place of fear, however – is very real.  The dimming of Light does make a room darker. It slows you do down.  You became hesitant.  Doubtful. Your imagination can see things in the shadows.  It stops you. Or it moves you to buy excess toilet paper.   Or wear a mask constantly.  Or run to get vaccinated.  As if we have to urgently do something because God doesn’t have our back.  Really what we are saying is that it’s not the darkness in the room that stops us, but in not seeing everything there is to see (to control it) that does. 

The lack of trust that people have, the lack of confidence in being fully supported and safe and cared for by God is what stops us.  To the point where to some people God has failed to exist,  become irrelevant to everyday modern life or relegated to a Sunday checkbox as they take matters in their own hands the rest of the week. 

How would things be different if you actually believed in that full support.  If you knew it. How would you then move through your life?  What kind of person would you be?

Fear is a signpost to where you have not Trusted God and let God in

There’s all such research on neuropathways and brain neuroplacisity that talks about how change shows up in the body through our experiences everyday. How the brain changes to allow and automate differences all the way around to change habits, create more happiness, better health and even changes genetics.  Science is showing us the proof that we have had more creative potential than we could have ever imagined. So why aren’t we using more of it?

What suppresses that potential is the actual experience of fear that we have running in our day to day lives. The anxiety, worry, doubt, discomfort.

Those quiet fears that we may not even notice are lingering in the corners as we are going about our day.  The ones that secretly believe we are alone and unsafe. The ones that silently handcuff us to this ordinary rather than stepping into our calling and become extraordinary.

And we all have a calling. None of us were born by accident.  We are all significant and necessary. Size doesn’t matter.  What does matter is your active pursuit of trust and surrender to God and his Grace in moving towards it. One step, however tentative it feels, at a time. 

The interesting thing about the calling(s), is that it doesn’t even matter what it is.  Its not the type or number of gifts wrapped under the tree that is meaningful.  Or whether you see it as big, small, impactful or desired by others.  Its recognizing it was given to you in the first place.  Specifically to you and for you for both you and others. Crafted uniquely for your makeup and nature.  And it comes to you in a quiet pull.  The pull that unsettles you because its something you have not yet done. The one that will not give you rest.  And continues to beckon you. 

Your calling is your practical, objective invitation to replace your fears with Truth

 

Open and Explore it. Doing so allows a whole new understanding of God and the security you haven’t yet allowed.  And it starts with deciding to step through your fears and act on that call. In whatever small way, to begin.  Start Today.  

When you do, you allow more Life, more Love, more Truth than you can imagine and you end up giving and receiving the best gifts of all.  So open your gift. It’s Christmas time.  It, God and the rest of the world are waiting for you.  You’ll be amazed in wonder at what you discover.