For the past 3 months I have barely left my house.

Back in December our only car got totaled and it left this stay-at-home mom totally stranded with two small children.

Now, before you start to feel sorry for me let me tell you the truth. I didn’t mind it. For someone who is supposed to be a sanguine extrovert I was oddly comfortable inside my little house for entire weeks at a time. And then it happened...

I started getting weird about leaving. Like, I didn’t want to. Like, it made me nervous. Going out for groceries was like leaving The Shire. My world got small and I got scared.

Why? I just let my thinking get out of control. I was so comfortable in my house with my two kids. I had adjusted oddly well to the thought of never leaving that the thought of leaving actually mildly scared me.

It makes me realize how much like life this is. How limited am I if I never leave my house?

How limited are we if we never leave the safety of the familiar?

The same idea applies to every aspect of life.

We don't want to eat different things because we're afraid we won't like them.

We don't want to try new things because we're afraid we won't be good at them.

We don't want to step out and do or be who we KNOW God is calling us to be because we are scared that people won't like it.

Parents are raising narcissistic children because they are afraid of them feeling the sting of rejection.

We don't try and change a habit that we know is harmful because we are afraid we might fail.

The scariest thing is that the majority of people waste their lives because they embrace comfort rather than confronting the fear that keeps them bound to mediocrity.

Most people die never having really lived. And that is a tragedy.

I shared my struggle with my husband and my sister. My sister reminded me of a scripture that I've known all my life, but didn't realize I needed until that exact moment.

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and of love and a sound mind.”

— 2 Timothy 1:7

God has not given me a spirit of fear.

This means any fear that I or you have is NOT from God. And if it's not from God, then why am I giving it such power over me?

Literally, everything that we could possibly be afraid of has been taken care of by the cross that Jesus died upon.

When we begin to let fear take hold of us, it means that we're allowing this flesh and bone to have too much stock in our day-to-day lives. Surely, we have taken our eyes off of eternity and placed it squarely upon preserving ourselves.

“Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, ‘DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory.’

’O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY?

O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?’

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.”

— 1 Corinthians 15:50-58

Fear is irrevocably linked to self-preservation. [Tweet this]

It is sure to make our world smaller and minimize our sphere of influence.

Christ alone deserves our devotion. He deserves our every waking thought. His beauty is beyond description, His love beyond compare.

Christ died so that we could be free from the fear that we all too often yield ourselves to willingly. This is the exact thing that I hadn’t quite come to terms with; the fear that I allow into my life, that I allow to dictate my actions, is actually idolatry.

Any scenario that I exalt above the finished work of Christ is sin. Plain and simple. [Tweet this]

Christ came not only to forgive us of our sins but to free us from them. None of us will experience freedom until we acknowledge what we need freedom from.

I needed freedom from fear, I know that we all do in some form or another. Maybe it’s just that we’ve patty-caked around it for too long.

It’s time to call fear out.

It’s time to call it what it is. Sin.

It’s time to refuse to give it power over us.

The only way we can do that is to repent; to change our minds and our actions.

In order to move forward we can’t feel sorry for ourselves anymore just because we’re scared. We must sink deep into the immensity of Christ’s love for us because it is in that place that fear cannot survive.

It is in this place that fear is swallowed up in the victory that was won for us on the cross.