Overcoming Fear..

Disclaimer:   I'm sooooooooooo first partaker in this one.........

1 John 4:18 NLT "Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced His perfect love."

This scripture has been a focal point for me for 2016. Almost to the point of pure joy AND sometimes frustration too. Most people have exercise, money management, new house, home renovations, things like that on their new years resolution. On mine, I wanted to take my life back. I needed to find the courage to fight my fears. I have to fight my fears all the time because there are really so many of them. Even spiders. But spiders is not the kind of fear I'm talking about today. It's the fears that truly change your day or life. The kind that  really holds you back from doing things/doing things well. And every time I think I have one fear defeated, God reveals another to me. Its amazing how many things in your life are actually rooted in fear. Pride, anger, lack of confidence, timidity, stress... all of it is foolishness, that when you really take a good look at the "why" of it in yourself, you find a fear of something. Here is what I fight and how fear is wrapped up in it. Maybe my exposing of my weaknesses/fears can help you understand something in yourself that maybe you can begin to try to overcome.

Pride:    My fear of being considered dumb in something makes me to try to "know" about certain things, and also makes me stubborn in certain things. For example, my husband will tell you that i am one stubborn woman, and there are things that he can't get me to agree to cause I "know" what i know, and I won't budge (right or wrong). Hard, but this is one that I fight in every moment of my day, because it can cause some serious problems!

Self-Confidence:  My fears of not being enough or being compared to something/someone else. The fear of being judged. And youtend to overcompensate that feeling with statements like "you are nobody to judge me" or "boo, look at you! Who are you?"  For example, I am not always confident singing strong at my church. And if I'm real        with myself, it's because I sing between 2 "SANGING" ladies in my section. And I know that they would never compare any of us to the other, but it's always something that happens in my own mind. Mainly because I admire their gift so much. But that chain is for sure falling off me soon!

Control:    Lord, this one shows up on me HEAVILY when it comes to my children. I have SUCH a fear of them failing, because I fear failing them as their mother. I have such a fear of them not being mature enough in life, I sometimes over protect them. I have such a fear of them being in the world too              much, so I sometimes find excuses to trap them with me. I have a fear that they will walk into the same mistakes I did growing up, so at times I lecture too much, and sometimes I feel like i don't talk enough. None of these things are good. 

The solution that God has told me (literally as I typed this entry, because He has wiped my memory from what I thought He said the first time) is that Fear opens the door, to what i'm afraid of, to become a true and realistic option in life. For example. I fear that my daughters may walk into the same pits that I did. BUT, if I 

      1) change my focus from what i'm DECLINING to be an option in my daughters' lives.  

      2) teach them the Word and pray for wisdom for them

      3) teach them how to be true daughters of the Lord 

If I do all these things, then I have taken the attention from the "death" I was considering as an option for my girls. And in turn THROWING THAT THOUGHT BACK IN THE DEVILS FACE (ya'll know by now, I LOVE to stomp on the devils head!) AND SENDING IT BACK TO THE PITS OF HELL! There is now nothing to fear because my only option left for their lives is the "Life" given by God, by Grace through Faith and that's always victorious!!! 

Take the challenge. Now that I've taken a look at my fears in the open, what fears can you analyze and pick apart in your life privately? What areas of your life can you make wonderful? Where can you find death and throw it in the devils face and send it back to hell with him?  Find those things, and take joy in the fact that you CAN take back your life from fear!!!!!

2 Timothy 1:7 NLT "For God has not given us a spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind."