Fear. It’s a thing. A horrible, no good, awful thing that ties our hands and blinds our eyes to the greatness of our true potential. It’s the hissing voice that whispers lies in our ear when everything is quiet and still. It is the nagging feeling of inadequacy that rapes us of our joy, the constant uncertainty that harasses us as we are rising toward a mountaintop moment in our lives. It steals our peace and breaks our spirit, It is the destroyer of dreams, the master of discouragement, and it is a well known companion to us all.

Fear does have power. It has the power to keep us trapped in a space we no longer belong. It convinces us to hold so tightly to people or ideas or things that they begin to whither and die under the pressure of our grasp. Fear is sneaky and it is relentless, but it doesn’t have to win. I know fear well, we’ve been buddies for most of my life, he likes to make me feel like I’m not good enough to do anything worthwhile. He enjoys  taunting me with my inadequacies and then proving them to be true.

Yeah, sometimes fear pans out. I had to speak publicly recently, which is basically the last thing on this planet I would ever choose to do. I think I’d rather play with Tarantula’s or snakes, or maybe cliff dive, but I digress. I blew it. I did all the things I’ve read to do beforehand, like, you know, breathing. It didn’t work. My fear won and my ego took a pretty good hit to boot, but you know what? I’m glad I did it. I’m glad because every time I fight the fear that tries to hold me back it gets weaker.

And that’s the thing about fear. Each time we stand up and face it, the power it holds over us diminishes ever so slightly. As we do this our inner selves grow in size and strength and the bully we call fear begins to look a whole lot less like a powerhouse, and more like the sniveling little punk that he is. He doesn’t deserve my time or energy, and I’m done giving him more than his fair share of either one.

It is said that the scriptures mention “fearing not” or some variation thereof 365 times, which seems to give the idea that it is something of which we may just need to take note. I am certain there will be plenty of times when my strength against fear will be tested in the coming months and years, but I’m growing, training, and becoming bigger than these fears day by day. So let’s encourage each other to rise and be our greatest selves, facing the fears that have held us back for so long. I’ve got this, you’ve got this, let’s make life happen!