A few years ago, we had the privilege of housing one of the sweetest, kindest souls anyone would be lucky to have. She and I stayed up late one evening talking; we always had the best talks in the quiet hours of the evening. During one of our conversations, my sweet friend shared about her struggle with fear and anxiety. My first advice was me throwing out scriptures like, “God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7). I would say things like, “well, what are you afraid of or why do you have anxiety?” In other words, I was not helping at all.
Then with the combination of the Holy Spirit and my overtired brain, I pictured a basketball court. Fear was number 8, tall, strong, and chewing her gum like she owned the court. Then there was the other player, standing off to the side. I told my friend, “we watch sports and we see people extremely passionate about the win. The good players are always alert, aggressive, and smart about their next move. I told her it’s time to be aggressive in our thoughts. It’s like we wake up every morning and say, “oh good morning fear, it’s you again, #8, let me pave the way for you, the hoop is wide open.” Then we spend the rest of the day saying, “gosh, why does she keep scoring so many baskets on my court?”
That evening, I literally jumped to my feet and said, “come on, quick feet, let us B-E aggressive!!” We laughed together about my crazy quick feet in my pjs, but in all reality, we both felt an increase in strength and power to not settle in fear and let it rear its ugly head.
Anxiety and fear have been mean players in most of our courts before, and today, just like I told my friend that evening, “it’s time to get your quick feet on, get some grit in your teeth and start the morning saying, ‘bring it on,’ and slam that ball right back in your crazy thought’s face.” Just as I read 2 Timothy to my friend that night about God giving us the spirit of power, love and a sound mind, we can all be encouraged that fear is a liar who comes from nowhere else, but our adversary, the devil. Fear and anxiety’s goal is to win every day in our lives, but we have power in The Spirit to overcome fear. We can fan the flame of fear or we can tell it where to go. Let’s take these thoughts back, let’s fight for sound minds, and let’s stop giving our fear, anxiety, lustful, deceitful thoughts a free shot, and be in a ready posture, alert and aggressive for freedom, peace and love.
Emily Rodewald 