When Fear knocks, send Faith to the door!

By Helen Jesze, 29^th August 2020

“For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by Him we cry, ‘Abba Father’,”

Romans 8, 15 NIV

This week I was thinking of the time when George and I went on a ministry trip to USA. I first flew when I was 19 years old and that had been no problem, but somewhere along the way, a fear of flying had taken hold of me. I knew I would be in the Lord’s hands and I should be trusting Him instead of being afraid, but it was a daily struggle and especially on our initial flight from Frankfurt, Germany to New York. We would be doing a tour of German-speaking churches. This involved several flights also in the country, and every time I struggled with this fear. It intensified as the end of four weeks was approaching, as I was to fly back on my own! George would be staying for another two weeks.

On the night before I was to leave, George lay peacefully asleep, but I lay sweating in bed, and trembled every time a plane flew over. I repeated the promises of God to myself, commanded Fear to leave me, but I felt as though chains were wrapped around me. I told George and he prayed for me but nothing seemed to help!

The next day, as I went up the steps, I was dreading the next hours, but just as I stepped into the plane, Fear fell off me like a cloak, and I was free! It was to be an unusual flight, for the air-conditioning would only come on once we were at three thousand feet, and due to a problem, we could not depart for two hours. It became boiling hot in the plane and the poor man next to me was taken ill and vomited all over the place!

The flight was uneventful and we were to refuel in Iceland and as we got nearer we saw thick flakes of snow flying past our windows. After several tries, the pilot landed us safely, but outside there were more challenges. A strong blizzard was blowing and several big burly men were waiting. They linked arms with several of the passengers at a time and helped us get through deep snow safely into the airport building, or we would have been blown away. All the electricity was cut off due to the storm and they had switched on the generators, so we had light, but there was no heating or even a warm drink. It was several hours before they could de-ice our plane and the runway, and I was able to fly on to Luxembourg. I had missed my connection flight, but a coach took us on to Germany. Very weary, but grateful to God for His help I arrived home to Frankfurt. Since then I have flown several times to USA, to New Zealand, Australia and Korea, and many shorter trips to Europe, and was glad when we arrived, but I have never had that paralysing fear again, and I praise God for delivering me.

Every one of us has fears to confront. I remember a young lady who was terrified of spiders, then the Lord called her to the Belgian Congo as a missionary, where there were plenty of these huge, poisonous, hairy creatures! When she was on furlough I asked her how she was coping, and she testified how the Lord had gradually delivered her from this fear.

In the NIV version of our Bible verse, it reads that when fear takes hold of us, we become its slave. A slave has no voice of his own and cannot do what he would like, but is always subject to his master. Slaves have often been bound in chains and tortured. Fear can do this to us, but Paul says here that we have now been given another spirit, the Holy Spirit, and we have been adopted into God’s family, giving us the privilege of calling Him “Father” and even “Abba Father” – “Daddy”. As we grow in the Christian life, this wonderful Father wants to set us free from our known and our secret, unconscious fears. Sometimes He will allow something which will trigger a fear which we have been hiding to come to the surface, so that we will recognise it for what it is, and that something can be done about it.

Some fears may drop off instantly, others we may struggle with for a while, but as we send Faith in God’s promises to the door of our heart when fear knocks, even if he puts up a fight, he will soon have to turn tail and scuttle off. I have found that when I have got the victory over fear in certain areas, that it will rear its head somewhere else, but here too, God gives me an opportunity to gain that ground too.

So I want to encourage you, today, that God does not condemn us when we have fears, but He wants to break them off of our life and show us the wonderful freedom that His Son Jesus procured for us at Calvary – no more slaves, but now sons of God! Even as the father in the picture here gently cradles the small feet of his child, our Abba Father’s strong hands cradle our weak spiritual feet, causing them to be protected and held firm.

He also wants to show us where we have perhaps allowed fear to enter. There may be certain things we will have to get rid of, certain TV programs and websites we should not watch or look at, certain negative friends we may have to break with, as these are all opening a door which allows fear to enter. Then as we grow in Him, as His Word takes deeper root in our spirit, our feet become strong. Being girded with His Truth and clad in His spiritual armour, we will “stand and having done all to stand”!