Living with Fear

Worried about life?

If you are paying attention to anything going on in the world right now you are probably a little bit stressed by it. Just looking at headlines for the day you can pick up stress reading about war, gas prices, inflation, food shortages, political drama, lasting effects of the pandemic and natural disasters. Not to mention wondering who’s gonna win the Stanley cup, and any extra stress that may be spurred on by your own political beliefs. Sigh. At least hockey’s fun to watch!

All of these topics – and many more – tend to weigh us down. Leading us to ask questions like “Why is life like this?” or statements like “I just want it to be like it used to be.”. That would be wonderful wouldn’t it. I remember December 2019, we heard of a new virus far away from us but life was normal, then. We enjoyed the holidays and one of my last memories before the shut downs is of our family going to junior hockey games. We went out with friends and were enjoying ourselves. Just weeks later everything was shut down and everyone was scared of each other. The time lost and the feeling of loss is sad and sometimes overwhelming.

In times of stress, fight or flight takes over. You either fight thru each day, making it the best you can, or you find that it is too much to bear, and you simply ignore it. Both have their pros and cons. Fighting makes you stronger in the end, but the constant stress can leave you worn out. When you are in flight mode you are ‘mentally stable’ (for lack of a better term) but when you are in your own little world you can be blindsided when something happens.

So, what to do?

A couple years back I went thru a bout of burnout. After weeks of depression, I came across 2 Timothy 1:7 during my daily reading “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” This helped enormously. I kept that saying in the back of my mind and slowly I got better.

So, how can we not have a spirit of fear when life makes us fearful?