After being in Honduras for a few weeks, I became almost crippled by fears. On the way to ministry one night, that’s all I could think about. All the what ifs, the unknowns, and the things I was so scared of. The next 20 minutes my mind was spiraling, I knew I was being under a spiritual attack and fears from the enemy.
Based on my previous experiences I knew that speaking my fears out loud and sharing them with people helps stop the spiral. As I was walking, I thought to myself “I need to share this. I need to tell someone”. But I didn’t. The walk continued and so did my spiraling fears.
As we got to the church, we were preparing for youth group. We were pleasantly surprised that we had some guests and one of the ladies had a program and message already prepared. We started the night with worship then one of my teammates shared part of her testimony. And guess what she talked about? God setting her free from fear. To make it even more “ironic” or not so much, the lady was actually planning on speaking about fear. Wow, God! Definitely not a coincidence.
What she shared that night was so impactful for me. She shared about how Jesus has already taken our fears to the cross. Our fears were already defeated by Jesus’s death on the cross. These fears I was spiraling with, were not from the Lord. In fact, He already defeated them. We shared our fears with the group one by one. Here was my chance to let others in, tell them my fears. What happened next was even more impactful for me. We wrote our fears on sticky notes and nailed them to the cross. Reminding us that Jesus has already defeated death, defeated our sin, our shortcomings, our fears. He is Victor over all of it. What we were experiencing was not from Him. 2 Timothy 1:7 “For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline”.
Yes, Lindsay! This is so powerful! I love the scripture you quoted from II Timothy 1:7. Our God has not given us a spirit of fear…so fear only comes from the enemy. The enemy is definitely under your feet where he belongs. He has been exposed for the liar that he is. You are victorious through what our Jesus did for us on the cross. Keep listening to HIS voice, He loves you so much and so do we!
This gave me goose bumps. God does, indeed, work in mysterious ways – and gives us what we need to hear when we need to hear it.
SO POWERFUL!!! Praise God that He said IT IS FINISHED and we get to live on this side of the cross. Thank you for your courage, vulnerability, and willingness to share about the FREEDOM you have in Jesus! So proud of you! 🙂