WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF????? .....by Ella

Courage is not the absence of fear, but the judgement that something else is more important than fear. -Ambrose Redmoon

Imprisoned by herself...

FEAR. That sick unsettled feeling you get in your stomach. A state of PANIC that can overtake you without notice. We have all experienced it. Everyone is at one point or the other afraid of something. Personally, going by scriptures I believe that fear is a spirit (For God has not given us the spirit of fear….2Timothy 1:7) and this spirit is definitely not from God. We are only consumed by it when we let our guards down as humans and forget who we are in Christ. It is a master spirit the devil uses to keep us where he wants us to be. Down.

Fear is the reason why we do a lot of things. Think about it. How many of the problems you currently have are tied to fear? Trust me, most if not all have something to do with being afraid. All of our worries come from fear. We try to control people and situations as a result of fear. We let people control us -what we say or do- because of fear. This indirectly means that some of us live in a perpetual state of fear without knowing we are controlled by it.

I look around me and I notice that FEAR actually regulates most of the activities we carry out from day to day. For instance, it is not news that the average Nigerian politician get greedy and loots money when he/she gets into government. Why? Because of the fear of being poor. Same applies to people who are stingy. Someone who is afraid of not having friends or being alone pretends to be who he or she isn’t just to become acceptable by certain people. A lady stays in a hurtful and abusive relationship simply because she is afraid of being alone or afraid of what people might say (probably because she has been in the relationship for a long time and she has told all her friends that she is getting married). Another lady stays in a sexual relationship with her boss, not because she loves him but because she has been told it is her only ticket to keeping her job. Of course she is afraid to lose that too, especially with the bad economy where there are no jobs as good as what she has. Fear will make a woman purposely get pregnant for a man because she is afraid if she loses him she might not get another. Another will abort a baby because she is afraid of the shame that will haunt her and what the world will say.  A student goes into an exam hall with “expo” or “bullets” because of fear. He/she is afraid to fail. (Who doesn’t like success?) The list goes on and on.

I began thinking seriously about this issue recently and it made me think about people in the past who had to deal with the same issues we face. These people had a CHOICE to succumb to fear or rise above it.  Imagine if ABRAHAM refused to go pack his things and family to the “place” where God will show him. He had no idea where this place was and God didn’t say. HE just said “get up and go …” He had the right to be afraid of leaving the people he was used to, his job and friends for an unknown place. But he packed up and went. JOSEPH could have been afraid of losing his job in Potiphar’s house and succumbed to the advances of Potiphar’s wife out of fear. But he didn’t. He chose to do what was right. (Do we have such men today?) Imagine also that DAVID was too afraid to confront goliath. He was merely a kid u know (about 15-17 years old) and could have let Fear drown his confidence. But he did not. DANIEL could have been afraid of being killed when the king made a decree that no one should pray to another god. What did he do? He opened his windows wide and prayed 3 times a day even though he knew he would be thrown into the Lion’s den when found. Same can be said of SHADRACH, MESHACH and ABEDNEGO. We all know the story of the burning furnace right? Shouldn’t they have been afraid of burning to death? Honestly, I think I would have bowed down to the damn golden image and asked God for forgiveness later. He’s a merciful God and will understand abi?

Now let’s imagine MARY, the mother of Jesus was afraid of being pregnant and being taunted by everyone that she didn’t marry as a virgin? I imagine she could have told the angel after listening to his plan for her “ah! Abeg o I can’t! What will people say? My friends, my parents?? Mba o. please I can’t. The shame will be too much biko.” I also imagine the angel would have gone back to God with her answer and probably another Virgin who wasn't afraid would have been chosen. Finally, let’s imagine that JESUS, in his human form was suddenly overcome by fear of being nailed to the cross (I don’t want to imagine that pain!) As the time of his death drew near, He could have thought about it and told his father “Dad, I think we should figure out another way to save humanity. I don’t want to die a painful humiliating death”. I don’t even want to imagine what would have become of us if he was afraid and didn't die for us.

I can literally hear someone saying, ahan! Ella these are ancient people na. Ok. Follow me and Let me bring it down to people we can all relate to. MARGARET THATCHER. The mere fact she was a woman was enough to make her scared of going into politics in the first place let alone becoming the first female prime minister in England. And do you know she was the first prime minister to be elected three times in England? She wasn't afraid of wadding into a world dominated by men. NELSON MANDELA wasn't afraid of his life as he fought for the freedom and fairness for his people. BARACK OBAMA wasn't afraid that his skin colour could be a road block to his being elected president of the most powerful nation on earth. GOODLUCK JONATHAN (yes, our dear president) could have been consumed by fear of the fact that people from minorities such as him were ever elected to the exalted seat in the land even if all the god-fathers said he would win. But guess what? He did anyway! (Ok people, let’s not get into whether he has been the best we have had or not).

All I am simply trying to say is that to be afraid is a CHOICE. These people, like us today, had a choice to make.  Once you let FEAR suffocate your senses, you lose sight of POSSIBILITIES! Of who you really are! Yes! There is SOooo MUCH you can do if only you can stop magnifying fear and giving it a front seat in your life.  KICK IT OUT!

What are you afraid of? Fear of not getting your dream job? Of being too honest in what you do and not making enough money?  Fear of getting married late? Fear of losing your friends? Fear of being different from others because you choose to stick to good principles? some of us are even afraid of ourselves. Believe me, it’s all a mirage.  Now, I will tell you one truth. The moment you understand what fear really is –a spirit that has no place in our lives –you conquer it and you become LIMITLESS! You begin to see things with fresh pair of eyes and start taking steps you didn’t imagine you could take. You realise that all you need to do is BE YOURSELF and DEPEND on GOD to sort things out. You then begin to see that there is no need for a lot of things that we do daily: lying, pretending, being fake, embezzling, etc because we do these things to impress some people or be recognised by society.  When we start doing funny things like these, we are simply saying “God, I do not trust you and your plans so amma go help myself while u are remain my back up” ( some of us don’t even have God as backup plan sef. We think we are all-sufficient)

Refuse to let FEAR rule your actions. Boldly confront your fears in the face and one day you will discover that the things that frightened you the most were really NOTHING at all.

THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO BE AFRAID OF!

FEAR NOTHING except God.

Love, always,

Ella…xxx