What are You Afraid Of?

When we encounter fears in our lives, including anxieties that can distract and even paralyze us, we can rely on the strength and the perspective of the Lord, who is our deliverer.  Consider these words from Isaiah 41:
10Fear not, for I am with you; Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.'11"Behold, all those who were incensed against you Shall be ashamed and disgraced; They shall be as nothing, And those who strive with you shall perish.12You shall seek them and not find them-- Those who contended with you. Those who war against you Shall be as nothing, As a nonexistent thing.13For I, the Lord your God, will hold your right hand, Saying to you, 'Fear not, I will help you.'

Here, the prophet is relating how God will stand beside you, including those times when you are facing other people of whom you may be afraid.  We can know intimately the God who stands beside us, who is with us to strengthen and encourage us, even in those fear-producing moments involving others.

Fear is a tool that the enemy uses to hold us back in our spiritual walk with the Lord.  But, God has given us the measure of faith and powerful resources in order to confront and overcome our fears.  He has promised us victory through His mighty power.

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In Psalm 56, the psalmist admits his fear, and also relates His trust in the Lord when he is afraid:
3Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in You.4In God (I will praise His word), In God I have put my trust; I will not fear. What can flesh do to me?

I was thinking about how some elements of this day, known as Halloween, which I refuse to call a holiday, prey on and even glorify our fears.   So on this last day of October, I want to turn your attention to a pre-Christmas classic, "A Charlie Brown Christmas."  Charlie Brown believes himself to be depressed, you see, and so amateur, 5-cent, "real in" psychiatrist Lucy Van Pelt begins to ask some probing questions.

I went to quotes.net for the transcript:

Lucy Van Pelt:
Are you afraid of responsibility? If you are, then you have hypengyophobia.

Charlie Brown:
I don't think that's quite it.

Lucy Van Pelt:
How about cats? If you're afraid of cats, you have ailurophasia.

Charlie Brown:
Well, sort of, but I'm not sure.

Lucy Van Pelt:
Are you afraid of staircases? If you are, then you have climacaphobia. Maybe you have thalassophobia. This is fear of the ocean, or gephyrobia, which is the fear of crossing bridges. Or maybe you have pantophobia. Do you think you have pantophobia?

Charlie Brown:
What's pantophobia?

Lucy Van Pelt:
The fear of everything.

Charlie Brown:
THAT'S IT.

Well, add another one to your list of fears: Samhainophobia.  What's that?  It's the fear of...HALLOWEEN!.  According to a piece on the Forbes.com website, samhainophobia is "a persistent, abnormal, and unwarranted fear of halloween, despite conscious understanding by the phobic individual and reassurance by others that there is no danger."   The writer references the website, FearofStuff.com, which relates that:

The root word takes us back to the ancient Celts who held a ceremony called Samhain in order to honor the harvest cycle. Each October 31, the harvest would end, and the Irish would gather to kill livestock. Often, they would throw the animal’s bones onto a roaring bonfire. The people who attended Samhain believed that the dead made their presence known during the festival, and that they must be appeased or else they would cause trouble and hardship for the townspeople. They began to wear masks and other disguises to please the spirits.

Kinda creepy, right?  It doesn't get better.  According to History.com, in later years: 

...banquet tables were prepared and edible offerings were left out to placate unwelcome spirits. In later centuries, people began dressing as ghosts, demons and other malevolent creatures, performing antics in exchange for food and drink.

This custom was known as mumming, thought to be a forerunner to what became "trick-or-treating,"

Samhainophobia.  A fear of Halloween.

I don't know what you're afraid of, but the Bible is certainly relevant to help you deal with your fears. Consider this with me:  we have not been given the spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind.  Those three components can be very useful as we seek to deal with those fears that can work in a detrimental manner to our spiritual life.

So, what are you afraid of?  Is it a fear of death?  The Bible promises us that we have eternal life in heaven with Jesus, if He is our Lord and Savior.  Are you beset by anxiety or worry?  Jesus tells us to seek the Kingdom first, and we can rely on Him as our provider.  Do you have concern about circumstances you can't control?   We can cast our cares on Him, knowing that He cares for us.  I would contend most of what we worry about doesn't come true, after all.

When we are afraid, we can go to the Lord and find the strength and resources to overcome.    When we fear, we can access the mighty power of God and apply it to that area of concern, recognizing that greater is He who is in us than He who is in the world.   The Bible says that perfect love casts out fear - we can know the love of Christ and recognize that He is with us when we fear. And, when fear enters our mind, we can meditate on and even speak out the Scriptures to reprogram our thinking, taking every thought captive.