Displaced fear and its responses.

Week 3 – Part 1

How much has fear taken hold in your life?

Take some time today to do an audit of this and determine to break free

1. Healthy fear – This is the kind of fear that leads to wisdom. This is when a parent correctly teaches a child important boundaries like not putting their hand in a boiling hot cup of tea! They need a preemptive warning. Or the kind of fear one gets at the thought of wasting your life on addiction or self-centredness rather than in Godly purpose – that’s a healthy sort of fear of wasting your one life!
2. Unhealthy fear – This is the kind of fear that is DISPLACED and crops up at random times when fight, flight, freeze or fawn manifest when we are TRIGGERED by our senses alerted to some sort of perceived threat or danger. This is linked to some element of our past that is still active in a negative way in our lives – consciously and sub-consciously. This type of fear is different from person to person. One person might be fearful of speaking in public whereas for another person fear may manifest in something completely different. Either way fear is a serious enemy to a life of faith and peace. Some parents use exaggerated fear-inducing claims too much as a way of restraining their children’s tendencies and behaviour. While I am all for Godly discipline, I am not for the idea of using exaggerated fear-driven methods of scaring the whits out of kids in order to maintain control. Sadly this can and does form a pattern into adulthood. Harsh words and fear often produces over-cautiousness and hyper-vigilance.

“Try and live your unknown tomorrows as more of an adventure than as an alarm”

– faith and trust in the Lord is the absolutely answer to learning to live like this.

Human responses to fear

• Fight
• Flight
• Freeze
• Fawn

So often the approach we take to limit fear responses is to limit opportunity in our lives. In other words, we shrink our world to the level of our fear in order to limit fear. The sad and tragic part of this is that God has designed us to live by faith and to grow and make an impact not to ‘shrink our world’.

Reflect: Take a moment to think about how much fear has a grip on your life. When does this manifest the most? Which of the 4 responses are YOU most likely to exhibit?

Scripture: For today, why not pray this powerful and truth filled Scripture,

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”

2 Timothy 1v7

Take a moment to determine and commit to breaking free of the oppressive power of fear and intimidation – check back tomorrow to find out how!