The greatness of what God can do in your life is usually on the other side of your fears. Yet it seems that instead of getting equipped to overcome fear, most people are simply living underneath what fear is saying.
Many times people get “stuck” under the fear factor, because they don’t know why fear has the ability to speak so loud. Getting to the “why” can be very helpful in understanding why you are under fear’s influence. Then you can invest your learning into building a stronger inner man, so that fear does not have to win.
Instead of beating yourself up, get discernment as to what may be the strongest factor that lead you to struggle with fear in its various forms; including worry, anxiety and more.
Here are ten key factors that will make you more vulnerable to the voice and influence of fear.
1. You don’t feel prepared.
Whenever we feel that we are over our head or do not have what it takes, fear uses this as leverage to assault our thinking. This can be a great opportunity for us to grow in our preparation but also in our relational trust, where we learn to grow and trust the process. God always seems to place us in territory where we can feel “unprepared,” but we are right where we need to be.
2. Your sense of safety is being threatened or compromised.
Fear enters in whenever we do not feel safe. Whether its in a relationship or particular environment, fear will trample on sense of safety, security and certainty. It creates a filter in our perspective that drives us to live under that umbrella of never feeling safe.
3. Your heart needs more love.
Wherever fear is present, love has been absent. This means that in whatever area we struggle with fear, we need an experience of love to heal us. Love has a power to displace and drive out fear, creating a sense of safety and confidence for our hearts.
he who fears has not been made perfect in love. 1 John 4:18
4. Fear runs in your family.
For many families, anxiety, worry and fear-based thinking runs in the family. It gets reinforced in family dynamics, creating generation after generation of people who struggle with the driving force of fear. It often takes just one person to create a new chain reaction for freedom.
5. You fight back by arguing with fear.
A classic mistake people often make is they argue in their mind with fear. Yet we have to understand that fear is a terrorist and works to maintain fear-based arguments, using “what if” as a way to create torment. Do not negotiate with terrorists. Stand against them.
6. Your confidence is low.
Many people lack the feeling that “someone has my back.” They even struggle to feel that God has their back. This lack of confidence gives an open door for fear to mess with our thinking. One of our greatest assets in overcoming fear is our ability to grow in confidence.
7. Your pace of life is working against you.
It’s amazing how many want to overcome anxiety, worry or other troublesome thinking patterns, but they don’t address their pressure-filled lifestyle.
Modern living has created a driven lifestyle which is engaging our fight or flight stress response on a regular basis. This sets up our body to have an overworked stress response, making us vulnerable to further anxiety, worry and many fear-based ways of living.
8. You have experienced trauma that reinforces fear.
Traumatic situations are more than just going to war or having a near death experience. A trauma can be any life event where our senses are overwhelmed and we are not able to guard over our thoughts.
Traumatic events can be as basic as being in an accident, being yelled at or being suddenly overwhelmed by a difficult season. Fear can keep us in a vigilant or fight/flight state.
9. You have been conditioned to avoid, rather than face issues.
Fear causes us to avoid or run from challenging situations, when in reality, we need to face our fears. Facing our fears disempowers them. But we have often been trained to make decisions that help us avoid pain and move towards pleasure and comfort.
10. You focus on what could go wrong.
It took me a while to realize that I had a highly negative perspective on life. I always prided myself with being able to anticipate everything that could go wrong. Over time I realized that living with negative influences in our thoughts creates a welcome mat for fear’s attacks.
Modern culture has so many negative perspectives. From the news to our daily interactions, negativity seems to overload our communication. So when we think about the future, our automatic response is what could go wrong, rather than what could go great!
Many times a negativity fast can be a great resource to help you clean up the toxic influences in your thoughts.
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