Fighting Fear and Finding a Life
Looking around, I see a hollow existence for most of us. It’s all about the watching, watching, watching. We watch people on TV, in movies, on social media and even actual humans circling around us. All the time we’re forming excessively strong opinions, alliances and a sense of ownership over things we’ve had neither a hand in creating nor in the perpetuating of success or failure. Yet, we feel like its “ours” to attack or defend. And you know what?
It’s weird.
It’s pathetic.
When someone’s life becomes all about watching others live theirs, they’ve stopped living. And why? Because they’ve given in to fear, and sometimes apathy. It’s the dedicated player whose life has become about watching, instead of playing. It’s the romantic who stopped trying for a relationship or investing in their long-term relationship & instead seeks to fulfill themselves with watching and reading others’ experiences instead.
Watchers tend to have an ever-growing list of rules and diatribes about their lives, too. I’m reminded of a woman who never failed to lose my respect when she interacted with others rudely replying to a waitresses offer with “We don’t DRINK coffee” before returning to her conversation at the table. After her rudeness to our server, she continued extolling the virtures of the latest crime playing out on the national news, something she also had passionate opinions that (of couse) must be shared. But when it came to real lives and real people, the only interaction she could muster up was pulling out her expanding list of do’s and dont’s which she loved to whip out and beat others with, at the least provocation.
Fear leads to isolation, which leads to ugliness of spirit.
Interacting with others - many others of many backgrounds, lifestyles and paths, leads to an open-hearted life of joy.
Life in the bubble is hollow and ugly, and it makes people who live in the bubble ugly.
In college I volunteered as a counselor in a variety of locations and in one particular facility, I had a recurring patient from the church of Wicca. She was a lost, angry soul who came to yell at me, even as I endeavored to love on her as perhaps the only Christian who’d ever done so. She was big, scary and furious. But, she came! And I got to talk to her. I spent time away from the office learning about Wicca, so she would know I respected her beliefs enough to take the time to learn about them. I would dearly love to tell you she became a Christ follower in that time, but I always knew the best hope I had was preparing the ground and maybe, must maybe, planting a seed or two. I treasured my time with her.
In the same office were two fervent middle-aged church-going ladies, who were wonderful when they spoke to me. But dang, were they scared of that Wiccan. They would actually shrink & hide when she came in. They had been in the bubble way too long. Their list of do’s and don’ts, legalistic canon of backstories and reasons to NOT do something grew by the day. They looked at me like some sort of superhero, willing to take on the world, when all I was doing was walking into a room to share Christ’s love with a Wicca follower. See why I call it pathetic? Those poor ladies had stopped living, and it broke my heart.
Courage isn’t the absence of your fear.
It’s the absolute presence of your fear, but you DO IT ANYWAY.
Growing up as the daughter of a mentally ill mother who suffered from severe traumatic stress, I saw what fear could do to a person & it wasn’t anything I wanted a part of. I’m drawn to the driven, the brave, the courageous, the boundary pushers. I want to ride their train & I want them to ride mine. For that reason, I choose courage.
But when you’re doing God’s will. When you’re doing seemingly courageous things because He is calling you to do them, it’s not courage. It’s not bravery. It’s STINKIN’ AWESOME! God doesn’t bring a spirit of fear. He makes you BOLD and BRAVE and LOUD and AMAZING! Sometimes your life will confuse others, those who are watchers and waiters, who make lists and rules to keep themselves safe. But in the end, God’s glory will shine all around you and because you are walking in HIM instead of in FEAR, you get to be a front row witness to the incredible and the profound. You get to be the reflector of His glory, the vessel of His love, the hands and feet of Christ. You see HIM in others.
Now, that’s something worth watching.
