What to do when fear strikes!

Fear!--We don't realize how much of it is subconscious until we analyze it and try to put it into words, yet we're often afraid to talk about our fears or even confess to ourselves that we're afraid because that would expose our innermost selves.

The fear of failure is probably one of the greatest fears people have--the fear of failure in life, love, labor, and--for Christians--failing the Lord. For the Christian, the fear of failing God is perhaps second only to the fear of failing others, because we know that God will forgive us, but others sometimes find it hard to forgive. The fear of hurting others because of our failure, the fear of letting them down, disappointing them, disillusioning them, discouraging them--the fear that because of our failure, others will also fail--this is hardest to bear.

But whatever your fears are, it pays to face them and to draw a line of distinction between the truth and the lie, between reality and the imaginary, between fact and fear.

An incident from my childhood illustrates this principle: As a boy, I delivered papers and handbills door to door, and I frequently encountered big dogs that would chase me and nip at my heels. Occasionally they actually bit me, but most of the time their bark was worse than their bite. I soon discovered that if I turned my back on them and tried to run from them, they were more apt to bite me than if I faced them.

Once when I was about 12 years old, I had gone into a certain yard to deliver a handbill, when out from the back yard came a huge Great Dane, barking and growling furiously. He was coming at me full speed, leaping and bounding, and I thought, This is it! I knew I didn't dare turn my back on him or he would bite me for sure! Thank God I remembered to pray for the Lord's help. I suddenly jutted out my hand toward him and yelled, "I rebuke you in Jesus' name!"--And did he put on the brakes! He skidded to a stop and looked absolutely startled, turned tail, and ran!

It not only pays to face your fears, acknowledge and confess them, but to take a positive stand against them, especially in the power and Spirit of the Lord, claiming the promises from His Word. It wouldn't have done me a bit of good to try to take the "positive thinking" approach and say, "Big old dog, you just don't exist, so I'm going to ignore you!" He would have promptly finished me off to prove that he did exist!

It not only pays to face your fears, acknowledge and confess them, but to take a positive stand against them, especially in the power and Spirit of the Lord.

You have to differentiate between reality and the imaginary, the truth and the lie. It doesn't do any good to just shut your eyes and hope the problem will go away, or hope that when you open your eyes again you'll find out it didn't exist, that it was just your imagination.

That big dog existed, and he was coming right for me, and it wouldn't have done a bit of good to shut my eyes and hope he would go away, or to tell myself that he was just a figment of my imagination. He was there, as real as you or me, and he was headed for me! In that situation, the best thing I could have done was to face him and take action to eliminate the danger, and I did so by launching a counterattack by the power of the Spirit. At first he was on the offensive and I was on the defensive, but the Lord helped me turn the tables. Suddenly he was put on the defensive, and that's when he turned and ran.

As any military strategist knows, it's impossible to win a war as long as you stay on the defensive. Defensive warfare is doomed to defeat. To win a war you have to launch an attack; you have to take the initiative!

So it pays to face your fears, recognize they're there, decide between the real and the unreal, the truth and the lie, and then to go to the attack to dispel the vaporous fiction of the fairytale and to drive away the genuine reality of real threat!

Fear is the exact opposite of faith. Just as "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (Proverbs 9:10), fear of Satan is really the beginning of death. The Hebrew word translated as "fear" in this verse is yirah, which means "reverence." So to fear God is to give Him the respect He deserves. It's a form of worshipping God. Therefore, to fear Satan and his devices is to give him just the kind of worship that he wants. God's Word says about other kinds of fear that "fear involves torment" (1 John 4:18). Fear of the Devil will wear you down and wear you out. It is damaging and disastrous to your spirit if you harbor it.

So you must rebuke that kind of fear just as Jesus did when the Devil tried to get Him to worship him on the mount of temptation. Jesus put the Devil in his place: "Get behind Me, Satan! For it is written, 'You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve'" (Luke 4:8).

The Lord promises "perfect peace" to those whose minds are fixed on Him, to those who trust in Him (Isaiah 26:3). So if you are troubled by a spirit of fear, put your trust in the Lord. Just tell Satan, "Be gone Devil! Get out of here! I'm putting my trust in God, in Jesus!" The Bible says that if you submit yourself to God and resist the Devil, he will flee from you (James 4:7).

(The above was excerpted from David Brandt Berg's article by the same title.)