The Three Killers of Fear | Power, Love, A Sound Mind






[Photo by David Pons on flickr]
Short Fiction

A pounding knock on the door jolted Jemimah and she almost fell off the dining chair. She tried to steady herself but her hands were shaking. She was afraid. And it certainly did not help that she'd been thinking of all sorts of frightening scenarios just before the knock.

"Who is it?" she yelled. Then she remembered the phone conversation from this morning and she knew exactly who it was. She dropped the papers on the table, put on her rubber slippers, and dashed for the door. "I'm coming." In seconds she was there.

As soon as she opened the door, she flung her arms around him as though she'd been waiting to do so all day. His leather jacket was freezing because of the cold weather, but she held on tightly nonetheless, even as the unfriendly wind blew in her face.

"I'm so glad you're here," she whispered.

"Jem, are you going to let me in?"

"Hmmm. Is someone is being feisty here?"

"Well, are you?" He laughed.

"Only if you ask me nicely."

"Okay. Can I come in?"

So much for asking. Without waiting for her reply, he shoved himself in-between her body and the door. In amazement, she watched as he took off his jacket, hung it in the near-by closet, and headed straight for the papers.

The papers. The frightening papers. She felt like opening a hole in the ground and hiding down there for a while.

"What time is the presentation?"

"Seun, I already told you this morning that I'm not going."

"Well, I came to tell you that you are."

"What do you mean?"

"You need to kill your fear and step out in faith. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind."

* * * * *

The spirit of fear visits each of us at different times in our lives, and when it comes all hell lets loose. When it comes, we feel like we're going to make a big mistake. Something that we will never be able to recover from. And then we choose to let it take over and we never take a step forward so that we don't make a mistake. Then we begin to move around the same mountain again and again, never moving into the promise land--- our promised Canaan.

But I'm breaking my "break" today just to tell you that there are three things more powerful than the spirit of fear. According to 1 Timothy 1:7, these three killers of fear are "God's power, God's love, and a sound mind."

A) All POWER belongs to God. If anything else tries to rear its ugly head against you, or tries to show you how powerful it is compared to God, remember Psalm 62:11, "God has spoken once, twice I have heard this, that power belongs to God."

B) LOVE: 1 John 4:18 says it all. "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out all fear, because fear involves torment."

C) A SOUND MIND: If your mind has 100% faith in something, then 100% percent of the time you will be certain. The mind is our seat of reasoning, and hardly any serious action is taken without a certainty in our minds. If your mind can move you to do something, then it can also move you to rebuke fear. 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 says, "The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ." There you go: every thought must be captive to Christ. And Christ only brings victory, not defeat. So a sound mind must reason that we are ALWAYS victorious, no matter what.

I hope I've been able to convince you that you possess three killers of fear within you.

Let's talk about it. Is there anything that makes you afraid? Have you defeated fear in the past? How? Are you willing to put 1 Timothy 1:7 in mind every time a fearful situation arises? I hope you do. Love you all, will be reading your comments, till next time on the Lamp :)