Battle Plan for Fear (+ Story Snippets!)

 

My little sister sits at the top of “big slide”, two year-old fat-rolls on her legs, and she peers into the dark.

I wait at the bottom.

“Ready, Neena?” She calls to me, making sure I’m there.

I answer her, but she waits, hesitates. Her blue eyes widen.

“Scared.” She stands, backs away from the dark hole of “big slide.” “Neena, I scared.”

So I climb up, hold her on my lap, and we slide together, bodies tight. At the bottom, we laugh.

“See how fun it is?”

She nods and runs to the ladder, scrambles up with eager eyes, reaches the top of the slide again. But then she slows, shoulders fall, and she says it again. “Neena, I scared.”

I smile. “It’s going to be so fun! I’m ready to catch you, baby!”

She slides.

And then a hundred more times.

The fear disappears, and she asks me to take her to the “big slide” every single day.

Because the fear was that I was asking too much of her. That she’d get hurt. That she couldn’t trust me. But when she did, all that vanished. She trusted, and fear turned to excitement.

Now I have to convince her to stop sliding.  =)

You know if you’re afraid. You know what keeps you up at night worrying. And that single idea or person or situation is the very thing you’re not willing to trust Jesus with.

Because fear comes when you don’t think God can handle something or you’re not sure His handling of it will be what you want.

And there’s a three-word solution:

trust. surrender. Jesus.

It reminds me of a scene in The Torch Keepers, the allegorical fantasy novel God lead me to write. Chapter 9 is one of my favorites, added later in the editing process because it was just this simple yet precious picture of our relationship with Jesus. The scene starts with Ka-Dara experiencing her first thunderstorm.

Something rumbled, like when my tummy made funny noises, but this was deeper. It began low and then got louder.

And then a crash. Light lit up the room, pale and yellow…

“They-They’re gonna get us.” I whimpered between sobs. “Like they got me and Ka-Mama. They’ll burn everything and kill us.”

… “My child,” he said, “You are safe. Nothing can touch you when I am here. You must trust.”

My jaw quivered. “but they took away my daddy and mama.”

He nodded, and a shadow came across his forehead. “Your King has a plan. He has a purpose.”

“I don’t think—,” I hesitated, chewing on the back of my knuckles. “I don’t like His plan very much.” I looked up quickly. “Is that super bad?”

Lines creased his face. “The King still loves you.” He stood. “Let me show you, my child.”

He still held me in his arms as he walked toward the door. Opening it slowly, the outside world met us in a breath of cold air. The flashing light had gone, but the loud pounding continued. In the light of the fire, I saw the enemy—only drops of water falling onto the roof.

The rumbling sounded, but it was far away. Father smiled. “This is a rain storm, and you are safe.”

…I blinked and giggled. “I like this rain,” I said. “It’s fun.”

He rubbed water off my forehead. “The King made it for you. He knew you’d dance in it. He knew you’d love it.”

My mouth gaped. “Really? How’d he know?”

“He just does,” Father said. “He loves you.”

I grew serious. “Does the King know I was scared of his rain?”

“Yes.” He nodded soberly. “But that’s okay. A lot of people’s fears are silly when they realize it. But the King knows, and he loves anyway.”

“Big people too?”

“Especially big people.”                

 

Dear friend, just a reminder for me, for you.

The King knows our fear, and He loves just the same. And that beautiful Love vanquishes, casts out fear.

That’s an incredible place—where our fear, anxieties, are drowned in His perfect love. And when we trust Him and surrender to His will, it’s glorious.

Make the decision to trust. Rest in His love.

That relationship is all that matters.

 

You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

They are of the world. Therefore they speak as of the world, and the world hears them. 

We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

- 1 John 4:4-6

For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

- 1 John 5:4-5

~♥~