Facing Off with Anxiety and FearSample

Facing Your Fear in Small Doses 

A doctor gave me a test recently that showed I’m allergic to five different kinds of pollen. He told me he could fix my allergies by injecting me with small doses of the things I'm allergic to, that little by little I’d develop resistance to it. Sure enough, after eight months of getting those shots, my allergies hardly even bother me anymore! 

I think that’s a great picture of how we overcome the fear that holds us back from living a full life. Fear doesn’t just go away, in fact, ignoring it just causes it to grow bigger in the darkness. We have to identify what is making us afraid. We have to name it: oftentimes, just naming your fear aloud causes it to lose much of its power. When we move forward with wisdom, we can face the things we fear.

We conquer fear by choosing to expose ourselves to the things we fear, in small doses. We take small steps toward it. Little by little, as God walks with us through it, we gain more confidence. The fear may never go away completely, but it loses its grip on us. 

You may remember how nervous driving made you feel, at first. But the more you did it, the more confident you became. Faith is confidence. It’s confidence in God’s promises and ability to sustain you, even when you are afraid. 

You don’t need a lot of faith when the sun is shining and unicorns are prancing in the fields around you. No, faith is a function of uncertainty – when you don’t know what’s ahead and you can only see one step at a time. Faith builds as you take one scary step at a time.  Little by little, your faith gets stronger and you experience God’s faithfulness. 

You will never defeat fear by simply hiding and hoping it will go away. Prayer will give you guidance about how to take wise steps toward your fear – so keep praying!  You only beat fear by faithfully exposing yourself to the thing you fear in small doses. Life doesn’t get easier,  but we are able to get stronger and more confident in God's love- even in the darkest of times. We can only experience that level of confidence when we take steps forward in spite of our fear.

God’s love drives out our fear, especially when we faithfully move toward the thing we fear- with wisdom and certain confidence in his love.