the truth about fear...

Wow... my life has been amazingly crazy the past several weeks. I've been busy with working Emmaus walks, I was asked last-minute to go to a REC for women (Residents Encounter Christ-a prison version of an Emmaus Walk) in Nashville.

I went on the very first women's REC at this same facility last year. I worked with the prayer team on the outside, though. I only went into the prison for two of the special services. This year, however, I worked as an assistant table leader! It was SUCH an amazing experience.

I was so torn about whether to go or not. Not because I was afraid to go inside, since I'd been there before, but because I was afraid of not being able to relate to the women or to give the right counsel to them.

Yes, I was in fear.

I have learned a lot about fear this past year.

I had a sobering encounter with how satan uses fear to control us. How he puts it in our paths to get us to shift our focus off Christ! I have come to realize that fear is NOT an emotion. When we express fear, it comes out as emotion, but the cause of this fear itself, is NOT an emotion. You see, when I was able to recognize fear as only a tool of satan, it has enabled me to slowly learn to rebuke it... to overcome it, to give it to Jesus to take care of while I go about my business doing whatever it is He wants me to do.

*BIG SMILE*

While working on the prayer team last year, so many things kept happening... the toilets quit working (talk about a distraction!), the inmates inside the prison were experiencing lots of different things--one was freed from a spiritual oppression/possession (I wasn't there, so I'm not sure which) and while we were talking and praying about these things on the outside, this loud banging noise started on the floor above us. It was very late and the prison team had just gone to bed and would have to get up very early, so one of the four ladies in the room went with me upstairs to see what was going on.

We assumed that it was some of the kids who had also been staying there, but when we got upstairs, there was no one to be found. We could still hear the noise, but it seemed to have moved to another location. The lady with me became very frightened. We decided to go back downstairs and once we reached the bottom step, the noise stopped. We ran into the college guy who was acting as host that week and asked him about it.

He told us he hadn't heard anything and that the kids who'd been there had left that evening.

....

We were stunned, and yes, fear ripped through me. I don't normally deal well with evil spiritual type stuff. The lady with me was so frightened and I didn't know til later that she was a fairly young Christian. My reaction, which was much calmer only because of Christ, made a big impression on her.

We went back into the prayer room where the other two ladies were waiting and told them what we'd found out. Soon, though, the noise started again. Somehow, the same lady and I went back upstairs, this time to get the spiritual leader of this REC to come pray with us.

He led us in the most, at least to me, calming, focusing prayer and even though he was only with us for maybe three minutes, I was so calm after he left. We decided to continue praying, and I started us in praying aloud, and I don't even remember the words I said, but just remember thinking, "Wow... is this really me speaking?" and that I was getting SO much strength and comfort from the prayer.

The other three ladies with me still talk about how empowering that prayer time was and how much they got out of it. God was in that room with us and the banging noise was not heard again.

That is when God started working to teach me the true nature of fear.

It was one week to the day that we had left to go to that REC in Nashville last year, when I had the lawn mower accident that sliced off part of my left heel. That was a months-long ordeal in which I got to see the Lord's handiwork each and every day as He healed my foot. As He continually surpassed the doctor's projection for healing and finally walking again. Even though satan had tried to attack me physically, I had no need for fear. God showed me that so personally and so thoroughly.

And He continues to give me the opportunity to share with others the insights He's given me. I was able to speak to one of the inmates at my table about the true nature of fear, what it really is, what we're really saying to God when we worry.. "I don't think You are capable of taking care of this.."

Each time satan has tossed fear at me, and each time I've been able to reject it, God has grown me a little more. Now, I am by no means some super-brave person who has no fear whatsoever. It still ripples through me from time to time, however, these days, I reject it. I turn from it to face my Savior Who I KNOW goes before me and covers my back at the same time. I realize more and more that when scripture says we have nothing to fear, it literally means NOTHING.

No monster, no worry, no illness, no physical need, no spiritual need... NOTHING.

And that is the truth about fear.

Blessings!!

G-