“FEAR”

“FALSE EVIDENCE APPEARING REAL”

Not The Only One !
Post# 117
25 Jan 24
” FEAR”
” False Evidence Appearing Real”
Howdy,
Once again thank you for being there. I always seem to be working on a post, and something else will come flying in from left field, and this is one of those. After last week, it may sound as if I have some theme that I’m pursuing, but that is not the case at all. I first encountered this acronym- acrostic almost thirty years ago, maybe it was twenty or twenty five years ago, but no matter. It has always stuck with me and I have just met person after person with fear and anxiety about the uncertain world that we live in. If it’s not about the political culture, or wars and rumors of wars , then its personal tragedy and heart ache. I’m not king of the hill, and probably far off from the bravest person to ever live, but I do try my best to live with certain things in a proper perspective. First thing is, we are all inhabitants in a mortal body and some day it will encounter death. That is just part of the equation for all living things. Pets, trees, all sorts of animals, and us. We have a shelf life of sorts. We can look at giant Red wood trees and other species of trees that may live hundreds of years, but at some point they will still die.
When I step back and examine my own life and my own heart, the things that would instill fear in me most would be about the lack of control over life. I think it’s a natural thing to want to control certain aspects of my life . We can’t and don’t always have control over our circumstances, and many times our response to things are less than Par. . I think we want to feel as if we have control over how many kids we want to have, but fertility is not an absolute guarantee, and so many couples struggling to have kids would attest to that . We want to control our careers, and yet millions of people are doing jobs other than what they trained for or was hoping for. We have the over qualified , the under qualified, the unemployable and everything in between. We eat well and exercise, and get plenty of rest and there is still no guarantee that you won’t drop dead at thirty five or forty from a heart attack, or just have a random brain Aneurism . I think that the more we just White knuckle every little detail of our lives, the more anxious we become. I’m a little bit of a methodical person, but I will occasionally attempt to multi task, but I’m not particularly a huge fan of change. I like the certainties of life and where things are in position to where I find myself. However, change is inevitable and it is just as certain as death. There is that thing about the more things change the more they stay the same. ☺️ There is a little truth locked up into both of those things. Life is full of change and very few of us will find ourselves in the exact same place that we were a year ago. There has been change, even if it’s just the addition of a few more gray hairs , and a new wrinkle or two and maybe a couple of pounds or more☺️☺️.
There are various things in life that we can put under the banner known as an exercise in futility. If you just stop and took a moment, think about all of the things that You worried about just yesterday. Would I be late for work again because the traffic was bad. I hope that my son doesn’t leave his lunch on the kitchen counter again. I hope I can get a good parking space because it’s raining. Did I remember to feed the cat. Did I set the parental controls on the cable, so the kids won’t see something objectionable. Did I take something out of the freezer for dinner, and the list goes on and on , and that’s just for one day. Now , imagine it for the entire week or month and even a year, and then remember how many of them were completely groundless or insignificant. Things that never came to fruition or amounted to a big Ole nothing☺️. Maybe it’s nature to worry about things in life, but often worries becomes fears , and fear is the complete opposite of having faith in God or anything at all, other than your ability to worry and be fearful. ☺️
Fear can be debilitating for some, we have all seen this in a movie, where something awful is about to take place and the person just freezes, much like a deer in the headlights. When we encounter immediate danger we have built into us the adrenalin that is supposed to push us to fight or flight, but many will become incapacitated and just freeze. Now in a movie, someone may pull them out of the line of a speeding car, or pull them from the train tracks, but what happens in real life, when we don’t know which way to turn and we aren’t exactly comfortable with just flipping a coin ☺️☺️. Fear has the ability to conjure up all kinds of no win scenarios. It wants you to believe the absolute worst about every single circumstance and situation that you will face. Sometimes fear is just straight up irrational. I say that because, we have a thing and it doesn’t really matter what that thing is, but it’s a reason for concern. There could be a dozen explanations for why something is what it is, but the tendency is to run to the worse case scenario. Maybe a bad example, but just for a second image that you were in possession of some extremely secretive information and someone was willing to torture you for it, and let’s just say that they were going to use some form of electric shock treatment that has ten different levels of intensity, each providing more voltage to your body than the previous setting. How many of us are going to want to start out on the maximum amount?, probably not many ☺️☺️. However that is exactly what we do when encounter a little uncertainty, we stress ourselves out with worse case scenarios. I get that one may be just a little to far fetched, but what about an anomaly on some medical test? Do you run past the possibility of human error, or an equipment malfunction, or that You may have some rare anomaly that is unique to your body and very few other people, or are you home on the computer at WebMD seeking out all of the things that it could be including the worse case scenario that is telling you that you should be making funeral arrangements ☺️☺️
I recently encountered someone who’s biggest fear was that their partner in life was incapable of change. Now, this is one of those bitter/ sweet things. First up, I believe that You need to love people for who they are, and I also believe that the older that we become the harder change is and less likely to occur. At the same time I believe that we must be willing to adapt and make adjustments, especially when it comes to areas of communication and caring for others. Love is an action word and it has to go beyond just the statement of it, but it should be poured out in acts of demonstration and sacrificially . You prove your love for others by the way that you communicate, share and care for them. It’s the action of taking care of them, which means you have to love them in a way that they feel valued and it brings meaning and worth to their personhood. If you find yourself with someone who likes it a little rough every now and then, well that’s for another post down the road ☺️☺️. I hate to say this, but many times this comes down to being selfish, prideful, and sometimes just sheer laziness, and not wanting to put in the work. Most of us are familiar with couples growing apart to the point where they usually end up squaring off in their own individual corners. There may be a degree or two of lack of sensitivity, and at the same time I would like to remind both sexes, that their partner is not a mind reader, which brings us right back to communication. Earlier I mentioned about exercises in futility and this one just blows me away, but one or the other has something that is upsetting to them and instead of finding a mature way of calmly expressing that, they take the posture of ” you should just know “☺️☺️. Ok maybe in your mind they should just know, but if it’s causing you problems and discomfort and you sit silent, then you need to speak up, because maybe it’s not as obvious to your partner as it is to you. After all, you are the one who is bothered by it.☺️☺️. I completely understand having to have the same conversation over and over again and they still not get it. Ok, countless times I have said how us guys can be a little slow on the up take, but I do believe that You have to find a way to express how you feel harmed or threatened by their words, actions or behaviors. We all have baggage and sometimes it’s complicated by the fact that our Samsonite is the perfect trigger for making the other person feeling unloved or cared for. I’m also leaving room for the possibility that your partner could be just a complete whack job and care for no one but themselves ☺️☺️, usually the guy, but not always.
Fears are not always groundless, but sometimes very real, so let’s just take a second and unpack that. Whether we wish to admit it or not just about all fear is rooted in punishment or some kind of negative response, or consequence. My friend who was fearful about her partners lack of or inability to change would mean that she would be stuck in a relationship with someone who doesn’t hear her or value her in the way that she would like, so her punishment would be to continue down a road that she sees as a dead-end road. If we displease our boss the fear is termination. If we don’t have proper income, it could lead to a host of not good things that could lead up to homelessness. All of these things are negative in nature and not good things and could have some very adverse effects. I’m not going to make light of anyone’s particular situation, because for some, everyday these things move past being a worry or concern, and it may even blow by the fear thing into a reality. This does happen and those sort of things do take place, but not at the rate that fear wants us to believe that it does. Fear can often be the mole Hill turned into a mountain and most often that takes place in our heads. Fear and anxiety can shave years off of your life In a pattern that is very similar to a cigarette smoker, when done habitually , and that probably took many of you by surprise. It can cause health problems and not just those of a hypochondriac in nature kind ☺️☺️ Fear has the ability to take the most minute* things in life and turn it into that thing that would be bigger than the elephant that is already occupying the majority of the room.☺️☺️ Fear is another one of those things in life that can at times only possess the power that we choose to give it to rule our life and emotions. Fear has talked countless people out of going into business for themselves, out of relationships, and other things that could have added substance* and value to their lives if they could just push the false evidence to the side. Fear wants to highlight all of the negative without any balance on the other side, because it doesn’t play fair and it really wants you to concentrate on the negative. Almost everything in life, at one time or the other was done with fear as the motivator . I mean what else can you call it when parents wrap their kids in bubble wrap ☺️☺️.
As I bring this to a close, I want to reflect back on some of my ROTC training. It may sound like an over simplification, but we control the things that are within our control and we know that all things are not within our control. We can worry about those things or we could plan a contingency for when things get sideways, notice that I didn’t say if, but I said when,; because very few things in life are flawless and that includes diamonds at times☺️☺️. I’m in the field and I see something on the map that says there is intermittent water way ahead. ( pre satellite imagery) . That means that sometimes is passable and at other times it may be under water. I won’t know the outcome of that until I get there. The wise old saying, I will cross that bridge when I get there. We should stop forcing ourselves to worry and be fearful about things that may never materialize or present themselves as a problem for you.
Very few things in life don’t have a spiritual component to it , and fear is heavy-duty in the spiritual realm. All through out scripture people’s first encounter with the spiritual is met with ” Do not fear” or be afraid ” . Again we mostly fear the unknown and that is partly what gives fear its power, it’s ability to be unknown. Not that fear is unknown, we know that all to well,☺️☺️ but the certain outcome of any given situation, and remember we are fearful for punishment, or not having a favorable outcome. We have to remember that we weren’t designed to carry certain burdens in life or through life, and God always provides a solution for that. In the book of Philippians , God says not to worry about anything, and then He gives us the solution of how best to achieve that. First He says to pray. God wants to hear about everything that is a concern for you, doesn’t matter if it’s big or small, if it’s a concern for you, then He wants you to bring it to Him. Then , He says to make petitions, which is to do the actual asking for whatever Your needs are, bring it honestly, humbly and sincerely, because God hears all of our prayers, even if it’s no more than ” God help me”. Thirdly we are to praise God and thank Him for all that He has already done, is doing and will continue to do, that is what builds faith . There is always more if we want it and are willing to receive it. If we are fearful, and fear is rooted in punishment, then God says that the antidote for that is love. It’s not just love, but a perfect love. Since none of us are perfect, then we know that it’s about how God loves us because He is perfect and good. We have to trust that in every situation that God has our best interests at heart. It may not look that way on the surface or at first glance, but a deeper introspection will usually demonstrate some kindness of God. This can be so hard to see or believe when we see some tragedy or injustice taking place, but we have to trust that God has got this and you as well. He works all things together for good , for those who love Him and are called according to His will. The bottom line is that fear is” A LIAR “, and it will do anything and everything to discourage you, if you will allow it to.
Fear is a big fat liar and you should not let it have your ear. I said earlier about how fear will keep us from venturing out into opportunities, such as relationships, business ventures, and even try and beat us up about taking rest or a sabbath. Sometimes when we walk pass or for go these opportunities, we will occasionally throw away people as well. God sees value in every living soul that was created in His image and He doesn’t create junk, so maybe we should be more cautious about throwing the baby out with the bath water.☺️☺️ Sometimes we need a power source or the thing that makes things go, so I’m going to end this with another acrostic that came along around the same time as the first one that I shared and that is GRACE…GOD’S RICHES AT CHRIST’S EXPENSE!. We all need it and we all need to learn to give it away.
Till Next Time ✌️ Peace!
Sandy The Southerner

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