Do Not Fear

I was sitting in terminal C of the Dallas/Fort Worth airport wondering what on earth I was getting myself into. 

After five years of mission work in Guatemala City I was taking my first solo trip there to spend time with friends I had built relationships with. God has given me a heart for the country of Guatemala, and its people, and I had booked a trip excited to see people I so deeply care for. 

The news of my booked flight was met with lots of questions and concerns. “Isn’t Guatemala dangerous?” “Someone that looks like you is a target.” “Wow, that sounds risky I can’t believe you are doing that.” “Aren’t you worried about being kidnapped?”

As my trip approached, these expressed fears from others had begun to sink into my own heart. I replayed every word of encouragement I had to my heart to assure myself that I had thought ahead and planned with friends so that I would be as safe as possible. Even more so, God has given me a love for Guatemala that commissioned me to go in the first place. But the questions and concerns were growing ever louder and were more and more discontenting. 

So, there I was in the airport, waiting from my connecting flight to Guatemala City, as anxiety and fear began to attack my thoughts with “what ifs.” I started saying prayers, asking God to give me peace and reminders of how He had guided my heart to Guatemala. I pulled out my phone and I texted a friend who I had spoken with previously about the things people had said and asked me that planted the seeds of fear. Then I opened my book, figuring that reading would help distract my mind, and found a small piece of paper with 2 Timothy 1:7 stuck in the pages.

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.”

- 2 Timothy 1:7 (NLT)

God has not given us a spirit of fear.

Then my friend texted back with prayers, encouraging words, and more verses that spoke to my worrying heart. I looked up from my phone and there was a girl walking past where I was sitting wearing a shirt that said, “FEAR,” with the word circled and crossed out. Wow…that was timely, I thought. I directed my attention back to my book, “Preach to Yourself,” which my friends Hayley Morgan just released. 

“Even as we declare that God will protect us, we so easily worship self-made safety and comfort. We experience a profound disconnect between what we read in Scripture and what we allow ourselves to embody in obedience. We cannot know that God will protect us if we’ve created a world of safety at all costs. We cannot believe that God is the answer if we don’t allow ourselves to need.”

- Hayley Morgan, "Preach to Yourself"

I picked up my phone and texted Hayley the quote with how it pierced my heart at that moment, and you know what she said? She told me to keep going. Keep going! Sometimes God leads us to things that are scary and if we wait for the fear to go away we may miss the moment. So sometimes we are scared but we keep going. Because going scared provides a divine opportunity for God to show up and be the answer. 

So I got on that plane and flew to Guatemala, anxiety still present but trust that the Father who lead me there would not leave me there. And you know what? It was an amazing week full of God showing His love and care for me through the amazing Guatemalan people He has blessed me in relationship with. 

How gracious is my God who whispers, “do not fear,” from every angle so He can lead me to a place where He can lavish His love on me in greater ways than I could have imagined. 

I learned a couple of other important things about fear from this experience. The enemy sometimes pries into our minds and hearts through the most familiar and trusted things in our lives, such as the voices of those who love us most. All of my friends and family that voiced questions and concerns had nothing but care and good intentions for my well-being. But the enemy worked through this to invoke fear into my heart, to question God’s guidance, and paralyze me in my place when God was asking me to jump. 

Along with this, the enemy was using how God made me to make me doubt and fear the place that God has lead me to love. As a blonde haired, blue eyed, young, female the enemy speaks all sorts of dark “what ifs” for what others intentions are with me. But God didn’t make me a blonde haired, blue eyed, female to limit me or hold me back as the enemy wants me to believe. If the enemy can lead us to fear other people’s intentions then we miss the opportunity God is providing for us to love them. Jesus said the greatest command is to love others. If the enemy can cause us to fear others – particularly those who are different than us – then he keeps us from following the most important command Jesus gave us which was to love. I think we’ve all seen this playing out in our world today. We’re afraid of each other, and it has built a barrier to our ability to love them and instead brought hate and chaos.

Where are you feeling stuck because of your fear? What has caused this fear, and how might the enemy be working through the unsuspecting to seep into your mind and heart? Maybe it’s time for you to go scared, allowing God the space to be needed and also be the answer. Perhaps you’ll see new evidence of His love, grace, and care towards you as He did with me during my blessed week in Guatemala.