Don’t let Fear determine your life

In college I took an introductory Philosophy class with several hundred other students. Most students did not attend class regularly, but of course, everyone was there for the final which represented the majority of our grade and was rumored to be a very difficult exam. I walked into the room and literally felt like I hit a wall of nerves. I could almost feel people’s fear and it made my skin crawl. I honestly wanted to ask the professor if I could take the test outside the room because it was overwhelming and distracting. I have not felt terror like that since then until this week when I accidentally opened Facebook after vowing I was not going to go online the day after the election. And somewhere amongst the rage and the quips and the confusion I recognized something I hadn’t seen in years- a heart-dropping level of fear.  

I understand where fear comes from- it’s easy to think about all the bad things that could happen or look at a track record or just imagine badness and become very afraid. But fear is not an environment that leads to anything productive at all. Fear is an enemy that far too often changes us into someone we’re not and cause people to act haphazardly, resulting in even more problems. One thing I always caution parents against when they are working on disciplining their children is that no matter what decision you make or actions you take- you cannot make them in anger and you cannot make them in fear. They do not result in actions that change behavior for the better. They usually just result in more explosions.

Oddly enough, fear does not go away by acting on it- it just manages to grow. Fear also does not go away by just ignoring it- it somehow manages to simmer and jump out in the worst way. But when it’s all said and done- we have to remember that fear is a choice. We can choose to allow our past experiences to color the future and let our imaginations to run wild to keep fueling it. Or we can choose to believe not in the circumstances but in something more lasting.

Either way, we cannot get so lost in looking for answers that we forget the most important thing- hope in love. Hope not in the circumstances or the fear around you, hope not in a certain outcome or a certain plan, hope not in your fears or anger to give you good logical answers and next steps. Hope in God. Take your trust off of your expected circumstances and put your trust back on God.

If I haven’t mentioned before, I was pulled off of the job after working three days as a doctor because of cognitive dysfunction from a life-threatening infection. It was not my plan! It was not the way I thought it would go. But in spite of the set-back and in spite of my fears that my career was over, I finished my training. I had to let go of the fears that I was no longer good enough and the anger at the crazy situation and move forward believing for something bigger than what I could currently see. It’s not what was expected, but living in fear and anger would simply have made everything worse- making things crazy for those around me, and getting me off of the path that I worked for. Life doesn’t always go the way you expect, but you cannot let your environment and your fears determine your actions. Trust God before your circumstances, and that will never break.