Faith vs Fear
I used to be SUCH an anxious person!!!
I would always overthink everything, worry about things that hadn’t even happened yet, replay conversations in my head … and I just found it really hard to switch off and be at peace. At the time I didn’t really question it, it was just ‘who I was’, it felt normal to me. But looking back now I can see that there was something underneath all of that.
FEAR!!!
Fear of something going wrong, fear of messing up, fear of making the wrong decision, fear of what people thought about me. It was just fear after fear after fear and it was just exhausting. But like I said, I didn’t know any different!
And then I found God … and as I began to grow in a relationship with him, I realised that I didn’t have to live like that anymore. There was another way.
Instead of living by fear, I could live by faith and that was a real turning point for me.
It was like a lightbulb went off in my head because I started to realise that both fear and faith are essentially belief systems and depending on which one you’re living from, it is shaping EVERYTHING!!
The thing is our beliefs influence our thoughts, our thoughts then influence how we feel and how we feel impacts how we act and the choices we make!!! So when we are continuously being fuelled by fear based beliefs, this leads to fear based thinking which then leads to anxiety and that anxiety keeps us stuck in patterns that don’t make us feel great and steal our peace.
But the truth is God didn’t create us to live in this way!!!
In his word he says:
‘For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind.” - 2 Timothy 1:7
‘Do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of it’s own.’ - Matthew 6:34
‘Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.’ John 14:27
In fact there are over 300 references across the Bible encouraging people NOT to live in fear!
And the beautiful thing is, when you do start to lean into a faith based mindset instead of a fear based one, there is a peace that follows that is indescribable, and when you keep coming back to His word and renewing your mind with those verses over and over you, it changes everything about the way you live your life day to day.
So if you are struggling with anxiety and fear based thinking and find yourself ruminating on the past or catastrophising over the future, maybe take a moment to write down some of these scriptures above, save them as screensavers on your phone or even create a poster and display them on your bedroom or bathroom wall.
Repeat those phrases every time you see them, let them into your hearts, meditate on them and notice how different you feel.
I spent years trying to cure my fears and anxiety through ‘positive affirmations’, self hypnosis and self help gurus but NOTHING ever provided the deep long lasting peace that I felt when I finally surrendered my life to Jesus and let His word and truth transform my mind, body and heart.
Final thoughts
Having a faith doesn’t mean you’ll never feel fear or anxiety ever again but it does mean fear doesn’t get to lead your life anymore and that is life changing!!
At the end of the day we all have a choice. We can live life through the lens of fear or we can choose to live through the lens of faith. One leads to anxiety, striving and trying to control everything. The other leads to peace, trust and surrender.
Along my walk with God I have come to realise that I was never meant to carry all my worries and fears alone. I wasn’t meant to try and figure everything out and be in control of every situation. I was never supposed to try and have all the answers … that’s God’s job! And when I truly surrender to that truth, there is a peace that follows that fills a space in my heart that I could never ever fill on my own.