What Is Fear, Friends Or Foe?

Bienhome Muivah *

According to the National Institute of Health, 24 million Americans suffer from feelings of fear intense enough to interfere with their daily routines, imagine twenty-four million-the total populations of the state. The loss of productivity and effectiveness due to fear is inestimable. Fear comes in many guises, perhaps the most common type of controlling fear is the phobia.

A phobia is "an anxiety disorder characterized by an obsessive, irrational, and intense fear".

Some of the better-known phobias are:
Agoraphobia-fear of open places
Claustrophobia-fear of being trapped
Zoophobia-fear of animal

If you have experienced one or more of these phobias, I am sure you would not consider it "irrational". And, sure, a lot of people have a morbid fear of public speaking, and they don't consider it irrational when their knees knock together like cymbals in a pep band. Also, don't we encourage our children to be afraid of stranger? Surely, that's not irrational.

And anyone who doesn't steer clear of a snarling barking dog, isn't rational. Phobias are fear that have become magnified and exaggerated in the mind of the person experiencing them, so that he is no longer able to function normally because of them.

Phobias or magnified fears, however, are not the only kinds of fear we face. The unknown creates fear. Over the last decade our attention has been dominated by such fear-inducing issues as co-dependency, dysfunctional families, addictive personalities, abuse, healing of memories, false memories and a host of others. Sensationalized media attention to these subjects caused many to become excessively preoccupied with their own dysfunctional pasts, creating a perfect atmosphere for a variety of fears to flourish.

Preoccupations with the past creates fear. Even though many thousands of people have not come from a classic dysfunctional family, exaggerated attention to such life issues can cause them to be preoccupied with the past. It is so easy from a legitimate concern to a controlling obsession. Looking back is reasonable. Living there can result in being saturated with fear. Paranoia about the future creates fear.

Of equal concern is an obsession with the future which creates an ideal environment for fear to grow. We can spend exorbitant amounts of emotional and physical energy feeling paranoid about the future-would economy, shaky political alliances, terrorism, crime, broken relationships, drugs, disease, natural disasters.

When these feelings are focused on and nurtured with fear, the paranoia that spawns terrorism has begun. Fear-drenched preoccupation with the past and paranoia about the future cause paralysis in the present. You can count on it. What a powerful and clever strategy of adversary (the devil).

The emotion of fear need not be sinful or harmful. Fear is not the problem, it is whether we harness it or it harnesses us. Fear that is harnessed can become a powerful motivator and constructive energy source.

It is very important to understand that the battle with fear goes beyond the emotional arena, struggling with fear is fundamentally and primarily a spiritual battle. "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world but against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms" (Ephesians 6:12).

All of life is a battle ground, a spiritual struggle with God and those who pledge their allegiance to Him on one side, and Satan and his myriad subjects on the other. The apostle Peter warned and instructed us about this spiritual battle: Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy, the devil prowls like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

Resist him, standing firm in the faith (I Peter 5:8-9). One calculating, effective strategy of that roaring lion is to exhaust us emotionally, physically, and spiritually with chronic, unharnessed fear. Then, when we are totally fatigue by that fear he can impose his evil schemes. Warfare requires that we know the strength and strategy of the enemy, in order, as Paul said, "that Satan might not outwit us". For we cannot afford to be unaware of his schemes (II Cor. 2:11).

Along with warfare intelligence we need weapons to defend ourselves, and spiritual warfare requires spiritual weapons. A soldier would never be sent into combat without instruction and training on how to use his weapons.

It is the same for Christians, we can defend ourselves against the destructive power of our spiritual adversary if we know ahead of time what weapons he will use and how we, through supernatural resources, can neutralize those weapons. We must equip ourselves to resist our enemy, the evil one, in all areas of our lives, including harnessing fear, if we are to avoid becoming a casualty of spiritual warfare.

God's protection will keep us from being consumed by the incredible power of fear.

We, as Christians ought to harness fear, and not let the fear harness us.

To live is to face fear!