Welcome to the 3rd post in my blog series on fear! By now, you should have already read part 1 and part 2, but if you have not, I strongly suggest that you start with those and then you can come back and read this post. Each post builds upon each other and within those post I give some foundational information as well as some tangible action steps that should be followed prior to moving forward to the information contained below, so again, I recommend that you start there. Once you have done that, you are ready for the next step, so let’s get going!
I want to just come out and say that fear has been lying to many of us! Yes, I have heard some people say that fear can keep you safe. They rationalize this statement by pointing to the very real dangers that our fear often keeps us from. You know, it is like that moment when your mind tells you that you should not do something, and because you listen to that voice, you feel like you are kept out of danger. However, I would like to challenge us to determine if we are confusing the concepts of fear and wisdom. When it comes to fear, I have come to understand that the safety that it says it offers is normally a myth. When we come to a place in our life where we feel like fear is telling us that we would be better off if we did not move forward in some area, we should be asking ourselves if the thing that we are running from is actually the very thing that we should be doing. Let me give you a brief example from my own life. When I was in school I hated math, so I would do anything possible to avoid math. This became even more of a reality once I got to college. I planned my entire schedule around NOT taking math, and when I made the decision to change my major, I can clearly remember what I felt when the advisor told me that I would have to take math if I wanted to graduate. My fear kept telling me to put the math class off and at one point, my fear of math almost caused me not to switch to the very major that I knew I was built for. What did my fear say you may ask? Well, my fear would tell me I would fail the course. My fear would tell me that the course was too hard. My fear would tell me that everyone understood the math better than me. None of this was true, but I was allowing fear to be the dictator of my future! The real issue with me and math had nothing to do with what my fear was telling me. The real issue with math was that it did not come as easy as other subjects and the amount of work that I would have to put in was something that I was not willing to do. Fear lied and told me it was the math that was the problem, but the real problem was me! My consistent running from math felt like safety, but it was actually foolish. It was not until I was able to really come clean with myself and look at my situation through a different lens that I was able to really move past this roadblock. Again, I was making a mistake that I think many of us make. I was confusing the concept of fear and wisdom. Let’s look at some definitions to bring clarity.
Fear: An unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone of something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.
Notice the fear is caused by the “belief” that someone or something is dangerous... It does not say that fear is caused by the “fact.” So it is possible to be afraid even though the origin of your fear is not true! Wisdom on the other hand is different and it is something that we all need more of!
Wisdom: The quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment. The soundness of an action or decision with regard to the application of experience, knowledge, and good judgement.
Notice how wisdom is “sound” and is based upon experience, knowledge, and good judgement! This is the filter through which you should run your decisions, and not the filter of fear.
If we come to our place of fear and it paralyzes us, then we will find ourselves at the door of greatness, with the keys to greatness, with access to greatness, but without the benefits of that greatness. This is actually a painful thought. To know that something is yours that you don't feel like you have the ability to obtain can be something that can and will hurt you. For many of us, we have been standing at this door for a very long time. Just standing there, not willing to move backwards and to afraid to move ahead. In this place, fear has control, it is your master, and in order to remove this master wisdom must be your guide. The question then is where do we start? How do we begin the process of replacing fear with wisdom so that we know how to navigate the paths before us with experience, knowledge, and good judgement?
The method that I have found that gives some of the most consistent results comes down to gaining and maintaining mature accountability. This step requires you to take your entire list that you have been working on for the last two post and literally hand it to someone (mature), that you see character qualities that you would want to see in your own life, and then give that person permission to survey every area of your character and make corrections. This is not always a comfortable process, but I truly feel that everyone needs someone like this. So, go back over your list and pray about who to give it to so you can move forward with wisdom and not with fear!