Fear Is Contagious: How To Avoid Being Infected

My mom used to love to watch Christian television. There was a channel devoted only to Christian programming, and when no one else was watching, that’s what the TV would be tuned to. I remember sitting down when one of the shows was on. I was too lazy to try to find the remote, so I let the show continue on. There was a man with large hair sitting next to a woman with even larger hair, and they were talking about the end of the world. They had these huge smiles on their faces, like they had just won the lottery, or rather that you had just won the lottery and they were eager to steal it from you. They talked about government alliances, red heafers, the pope, beasts with horns, and a lot of other things that I can’t remember. I was too young to know what it all meant, I only knew that they seemed very convinced that the world was going to end. Although they seemed happy about it, the brutal events that they were talking about scared me to death.

In the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy there are instruction regarding warfare for the nation of Israel. As I was reading through (not that I’m planning on going to war anytime soon), one of the instructions captured my attention:

“Is there any man who is fearful and fainthearted? Let him go back to his house, lest he make the heart of his fellows melt like his own.”1

That verse put into words something I had already experienced and that you probably know as well: fear is contagious.

If you spend a lot of time around fearful people you will become fearful as well. Fear spreads like a virus. Your brain starts to chase down all of the worst case scenarios and all of the bad things that could happen and before long, fear is in the driver’s seat of your mind.

Is your peace of mind being shaken by fear? Here are three things to consider:

Is my fear likely or only possible?

Few people have a daily fear of being struck by a meteor. The reason for that is that it’s extremely unlikely for it to ever happen. It’s possible that it could happen, but the chances are so remote, that there’s no real reason to consider it. It would be like building a home that could withstand incredible blizzards and sub-zero temperatures in Miami Fla. It would be a waste of money to build that home in Miami. It’s also a waste of emotional energy to worry about things that are incredible unlikely. If you made an  honest list of your fears, how likely would they be? Some may be realistic but many are probably not. If there are unrealistic fears that you carry, set them aside. They are gobbling up much needed energy and are doing you no good.

Am I taking action against the fear?

Fear multiples when we refuse to address it. It shrinks when we face it head on. If you’ve ever jumped off of a high diving board at a pool you know what I mean. The first time you edge your toes up to the end of the board, the pool seems to be a million feet below. Once you make your first jump, your fear begins to subside. Pretty soon, your fear is replaced by enjoyment. The more you think about what you fear and dread it, the more the fear will multiply. Facing the fear itself is much less stressful than carrying around the dread of it.

Are you talking about it to the right people?

Silence can be an incubator for fear. The more fear bounces around in your mind, the more it grows. Talking to someone about what you fear allows you to clear the air and get a fresh look at what is worrying you. The release that comes from getting your thoughts out relieves a great deal of stress. Also, it allows someone else to help you sort through your thoughts. Not being alone in your fear can help more than you ever imagined.

If fear is wearing you out and wrecking your life, take some time to think through these questions. While some fear is realistic and healthy, much of what we carry around isn’t. Fear doesn’t have to control you, you can have the peace you desperately want and need.

1 - Deuteronomy 8:20 (English Standard Version)

Photo Courtesy: "AustralianMuseum spider specimen 03" by Toby Hudson - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 au via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AustralianMuseum_spider_specimen_03.JPG#/media/File:AustralianMuseum_spider_specimen_03.JPGontrol you, you are likely more courageous than you’ve given yourself credit for.

There Is No Need To Panic!

I’ve read a few nervous posts about a recent report that stated that the number of Christians in the United States was declining. My life as a Christian brings me a great deal of meaning and peace. So, while I want others to have the same peace that I enjoy, I’m not panicked about the declining numbers in a great deal of churches in the U.S., and you don’t have to be either. Here’s why:

Numbers Aren’t Always Honest

There was a time when being a Christian was a popular thing to be. Or, maybe the other options were very unpopular. Whatever the case, in the past it was easier to declare yourself a Christian than it was to align with something else. There were also advantages with throwing in with the Christian camp, whether you were or not. Your neighbors may have trusted you more, and it wasn’t like there was a Buddhist temple on the corner as another alternative. Also, it’s easy to say you are a Christian whether you are really committed to it or not, sort of like being a Democrat or a Miami Dolphins fan. We live in a generation where religious options are limitless and “declaring” yourself a Christian isn’t that advantageous anymore. In fact, it might gain you a few strange looks in certain places. I believe a big part of the numbers that are shrinking are people who weren’t necessarily Christian, but just didn’t have another box they wanted to check. Losing folks who were never really Christians to begin with isn’t a devastating loss, just an honest clarification.

Our Desire For A Majority Hasn’t Always Been Healthy

Nowhere in the Bible does it encourage the spread of Christianity so as to create a political majority and thereby effect change. That was never the plan. The letters written by the early church shortly after Jesus’ death and resurrection offer a different approach.  Those writers described a personal commitment to follow Jesus Christ that resulted in a community of likeminded people committed to service and truth. Change wasn't going to come as a new set of rules for everyone in the nation to follow.  Better rules do not necessarily create better people. That sort of outside-in approach in which obedience is demanded only creates silent compliance or angry defiance. Early Christians were changed by an internal commitment that led to external expression. Those that followed Jesus, cared for the poor, and were eager to offer mercy and hope. That sort of life often leads to inspiration. The best bet for the church of today is to stop obsessing over numbers and start focusing on caring for the people in our communities. Love wins when arguments fail, and that will never stop being true, regardless of the numbers.

Photo Courtesy of Death To Stock Photo

Also, I am a Miami Dolphins fan, I'm committed, and it's pretty awful.

How To Survive When Life Is Breaking You Down

We’ve all been there. Maybe someone close to you died. Maybe the checks coming in don’t equal the bills going out. We’ve been betrayed, heartbroken, sick, and frail, and odds are, we’ll be there again. Life on this planet can be difficult, and sometimes we feel broken beyond repair.  In those dark places, where we can’t make sense of things and where even getting out of bed is a struggle, there is hope. Here are two lifelines to cling to when you feel that you can’t keep your head above water any longer:

I can’t be in control, but God is.

Our first reaction when life gets hard is to try to restore some measure of control to our lives. For those who have been rejected and hurt, we know that it’s impossible to control or predict how others will act. We can’t control our bosses decisions, or the pace of disease as it courses through our body. When life is hard, it feels like we have no control over anything at all. This typically amps up our anxiety or creates feelings of depression. In these dark helpless moments, control exists, and it’s in far more capable hands than our own. To remind ourselves that God is in control, even when we are not, gives us hope. God is bigger than your problems, your failures, or your inabilities. Not only is God in control, but He desires good for you and not harm. In the words of Old Testament prophet Jeremiah, God “knows the plans he has for you, plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11). Out of control isn’t so bad, when someone good and capable is in control.

I can’t figure it out, but God knows.

Not being able to make sense of things can be terribly difficult. Life will always have days that bring more than we can understand. People will hurt you for inexplicable reasons, things that seemed solid will shake, and things you trusted will break down. When life gets hard, we try to find all the answers, hoping that once we do, we’ll be able to more clearly see when bad things are coming and avoid them. No matter how hard we try however, we will never be able to see the future before it happens. We will never understand it all, but God does. You might not know the answers right now, but God is not in the dark. He is not anxious about the future. He understands your pain and what you need, and He loves you very much. The courage to believe this fact will get us through many dark days.

I pray that these truths will bring you comfort if you are in a hard spot right now. Don't give up.  Brokenness is not the end of your story, it is often the beginning of a chapter that is more incredible that you have dared to imagine. 

Photo Courtesy of Death To Stock Photo

3 Ways To Calm The Anxiety That Is Making You Miserable

Life is unpredictable and uncontrollable. Everyone would admit that to be true, and almost everyone hates it. Anxiety is what we feel when the uncertainty of life becomes overwhelming. Our minds frantically bounce from one thought to the next trying to fix, repair, predict, prepare, relate, or overcome. As our inability to control everything becomes apparent, so does our discomfort. Soon the headaches, backaches, or stomach pains set in. The small healthy fire that burns inside of us to be productive, rages into a forest fire that consumes all of our thoughts and energy. If your anxiety has become a common companion during your week, try out these three things to help control the flames:

Divide And Conquer

It seems impossible to ignore our anxious thoughts for an entire day, but 10 minutes is a reasonable start. When today’s anxious thought comes crashing in on you, decide to set it aside for 10 minutes. For example, if you are stressed about how you’re going to pay for your child’s college education in a few years, resolve to set the issue aside for 10 minutes. Say to yourself, “I will not think about the college issue for the next 10 minutes”. If after that time, you decide that you are ready to pick the thought back up, you can. If you would like to set it aside for another ten minutes, then that’s your prerogative as well. Remember, it’s not laziness or procrastination to set aside a topic until a time when our brain can think more clearly about it! Once your mind is clear enough to find the first step in the task at hand, you are ready to proceed. One step taken is better than 10 steps obsessed over. Often times the overwhelming size of the forest keeps us from chopping down the first tree.

Give Yourself Permission To Rest

 The more exhausted we become the more intense our anxiety can be. When we are tired, we are unable to think as clearly and life feels like nothing more than 1000 issues that we can’t resolve, swirling around all at once. Battling anxiety requires a great deal of mental energy. So, as hard as it can be, set a time to be in bed and stick to it. Tell yourself (out loud if necessary) that your day is over and you cannot accomplish anything else until morning. At that point, stop making lists (either on paper or in your head), let go, and go to sleep. This may take some practice and could include a few nights of staring at the ceiling, telling your brain to knock it off! But stay committed to the routine and your body will adjust.

Repeat After Me: “Who I Am Is More Than What I Do…”

 It’s incredibly tempting to believe that I am only doing well when I have done everything, and have done it perfectly. But that’s just not the case. Life is hard and we are imperfect. Even at our best, some tasks are impossible. Who you are is more than just a reflection of how well you perform. You can control your effort but not always the outcomes, so show yourself a bit or mercy. Think of all of the imperfect people that you love, odds are, several of them love you back just the way you are.

Implementing these three things into your life will reduce your anxiety and give you greater clarity in your thinking. We may not be able to avoid all anxiety in life, but we can keep it from controlling us!

Photo Courtesy of Death To Stock Photo

How To Turn Your Fear of Change Into Something Amazing

Few things scare us more than change. New expectations with my job at the office, a new teacher at school, new diseases springing up close to home, all of these things cause us stress. Our normal reaction to the fear we experience in the face of change is to try to stop the change. Our hope is that if we can control the changes around us, we will feel more at ease. This usually costs us a great deal of energy and stress, and ultimately doesn’t work. The reason it doesn’t work is that change is constant. No matter what we do, we are changing and the world is changing around us. If you are counting on halting change to stop your fear, then your fear will never go away.

We have two options when it comes to dealing with change:

Passively Endure It

Passively enduring change means that we feel that we are a prisoner to change. We wait for things to happen and then do our best to react. People who simply attempt to endure change often feel overwhelmed and can become very aggravated. When we try to deal with the changes around us as they come, we inevitably end up looking at change as an enemy to be battled against.

Deliberately Embrace It

The other option is to make our peace with the fact that life is constantly changing and to embrace it. When we choose to embrace the changes around us, we no longer see change as an enemy, but as an opportunity. Change is my chance to grow. Change offers me the ability to see life and myself in new ways.

A Final Word About Change

Mercifully there is one port in the storm of our constantly changing world. The authors of the Bible described God as the one thing in the universe that is unchanging. His love for you doesn’t waver. His thoughts of you won't ever change, and He will never leave you alone to face all of the difficult things that life can throw at you. 

Photo courtesy of Makena Madden

How To Truly Conquer Your Fear

Fear feeds off of the unknown. All good filmmakers know it. It’s the thing behind the closet door that scares us the most. It’s that person out in the dark just beyond what we are able to see. When we can’t see what  out there to get us, our imagination takes over and fear floods our minds.  The only way to send the fear scattering…..is to turn on the light. When we see what we are up against, it’s not so scary. The deepest fears that haunt us, however,  aren’t generated by what’s under the bed or in the woods or behind that closed door, it’s inside of us. The things that we’ve hidden deep inside of ourselves, the doubts and insecurities, the assumptions about life we’ve made because of how we’ve been treated by others. That stuff is truly scary, and we very rarely turn the light on to have a good look.

If you really want to be free from the fear that has been beating you up for so long, here’s a few things to remember:

The truth about you is much better than you imagine.

Most of us don’t take a close look inside of ourselves because we are afraid of what we might find. Your imagination is actually part of the problem. When you think about you, you almost always spend more time thinking about the bad stuff, the words you shouldn’t have said, the relationships you shouldn’t have held on to. Most people assume that God is the little voice in your head reminding you of all the bad you’ve done. In truth, it’s just the opposite. He is there to remind you that He has better plans for you than you could ever imagine for yourself.

Get some help.

We pay people to fix our cars, to wire our houses with electricity, and to clear those viruses out of our computer that makes Facebook run so slowly. But, when it comes to the incredibly complex inner working of our minds and bodies, we feel that we have it all figured out. Not even close! Getting help, whether from a close friend, counselor, or mentor is a life-line that should not be ignored.

You are not alone.

When you turn the light on and have a good look inside of your heart and mind, you will realize that God is there to face whatever you fear with you. God does not ask us to solve our own problems or conquer our own sins. We’ve all tried, and we’ve all failed. God wants to work with us as we deal with our junk. He loves us fully as we are and at the same time He never forgets all that we can become. 

Photo Courtesy of Death To Stock Photo

Friday Finds - June 13

In hopes of making your Friday the 13th better, here's some stuff you might like to check out.....


This is a pic of an ultimate frisbee game I was in last summer. I don't know why I added this, but here it is.... (and yes, of course we won.)

Did you know that there are two kinds of busy? Did you also know that the kind of busy you choose can affect your efficiency and quality of life? This is what leadership guru Seth Godin had to say about it….

Seth Godin: Two Kinds of Busy

Did you know that when you are going through painful experiences your fear and tension can actually make your pain worse? A brilliant video from the brilliant Sarah Bessey…

Sarah Bessey: Lean In

And finally, let’s put some chocolate myths to rest... 

The Truth About Chocolate

I hope your weekend includes lots of frisbees and chocolate!!!!

3 Ways To Crush Your Fear of the Unknown

Few things can derail our lives as quickly as fear of the unknown. Alfred Hitchcock made his living off of this type of fear. In Hitchcock’s movies, the villain or imminent danger is always off the screen where we can’t actually see it for as long as possible. That gives our imaginations time think of all sorts of horrible and terrifying things, which heightens the suspense we feel. This makes for a terrific movie experience, but in real life it’s not so enjoyable. The unknown dangers and unseen pitfalls that lurk ahead of us can create incredible stress and will often cause us to delay or miss out on great opportunities.  So, if fear of the unknown has caused you trouble in the past, here are a couple of thoughts that can get you back on track:

Make Friends With Failure

A great portion of your fear of the unknown comes from the fact that you think that not knowing something ahead of time will cause you to fail. You won’t have time to prepare or think it through and you’ll fall flat on your face. We have all been challenged we these types of thoughts. So, will you fail? Of course!  Everyone fails. Failure doesn’t have to define you, however.  In fact, your response to failures in your life will oftentimes lead to life’s biggest accomplishments. This means that failing at a task isn’t something to be feared but embraced. So, fail! Fail often and fail well. Just remember to get back up when you get knocked down, because another opportunity will be coming your way soon, and it may be the very one that leads to the success you desire.

Make What You Do Know Your Focus

There will always be lots of things that we can’t see ahead of time or predict in life. Most of the important decisions we make will involve some level of uncertainty. With that in mind, you can choose to allow all of the things you can’t foresee to stir around in your brain, cluttering your thoughts and freezing you into inaction, or you can focus on what you do know. In most major decisions you will know some details and most importantly you know what your goals and priorities are. When you make a decision based on your values and direction in life, you can feel good about your choice, even if it doesn’t work out.

Make A Move

When all is said and done there will always be the option to think about things some more (for the 314^th time), or an option to act, and sometimes you need to turn your brain off and act. There is a point in every decision when further thought is only slowing down the process and crushing your confidence, in those moments it’s important to take action. I learned this lesson as a teenager, when friends and I would sneak off to jump off of a local bridge into the river. I’m not saying that jumping off the bridge was a great decision (I’m pretty sure now that it wasn’t!), but I know that the longer I stood on the bridge , looking at the water below, the more my fear began to take over. The only thing that could crush my fear was to jump. After the first jump, my brain was no longer locked down in fear, and I could have fun. The same is true of many major decisions. There comes a point when our continued thinking and processing is only adding to the fear we feel, at that point, you need to go with whatever decision you think best and move forward.  

These tasks aren’t easy, but they are fear-crushers, and nothing feels better than unloading 100 lbs. of fear off of your back! Good luck as you battle the unknown in your life this week!!!