Of all the destructive forces at work within us, few, I believe, are more powerful than fear. I don’t mean the fear we all feel sometimes when confronted by danger, but rather that dull nagging anxiety which can creep into our lives almost unnoticed and then slowly take over. Such fear saps us of energy, drains us of self-confidence, and robs us of enthusiasm. At its most extreme it can result in inexplicable feelings of panic, even complete breakdown. It is hardly surprising, then, that our natural instinct is to run away from our fears, and to stifle as best we can any such feeling within us. Yet this is a recipe for disaster. The only way to conquer fear – as the following prayer from my book Are You Listening? reminds us – is to confront it, in the knowledge that, with God on our side, nothing can finally harm us.
God, I’m scared!
Don’t tell anyone I told you,
for there’s no knowing what they’ll think,
but I’m petrified,
more frightened than I can ever say,
and the terrible thing is I don’t know why.
You think that sounds stupid?
Well, yes, it probably is,
but you see there’s no single factor
I can put my finger on,
no simple explanation for this fear I’m feeling.
It’s more a combination of everything –
all the little anxieties,
the nagging doubts,
the constant demands –
all coming together to overwhelm me.
I can feel it now, beavering away within,
gnawing into my very soul,
and I’m powerless to stop it –
the harder I try, the more tenaciously it clings,
the more I resist,
the more I wake up and find it there to greet me.
I walk down the street, and it’s there by my side.
I meet a stranger, even a friend,
and it leers out at me.
I look longingly to the future but it’s there too,
waiting for me.
Lord, is there nowhere I can escape,
nowhere I can be free?
My child,
don’t be afraid,
I’m here –
no need to panic.
Let’s look at these fears of yours,
slowly and sensibly.
You tell me you’re not afraid of one thing in particular,
and you’re right,
for if you were
you’d have come to terms with it by now,
sorted it out once and for all.
No, it’s a deeper problem you’re suffering from –
the fear of fear itself,
and that’s something much harder to deal with,
a dilemma only you finally can resolve.
You need to stop running,
stop looking over your shoulder,
and face your fear head on.
You need to stop brooding,
stop struggling,
and let it do its worst.
When you do that you’ll realise
this monster of your imagination
is just an empty phantom,
powerless to touch you,
still less to hurt.
It won’t be easy at first,
for you must change the habit of a lifetime,
but trust me,
remember I am with you,
pay heed to my words,
and, before you know it,
your fears will be fleeing from you,
rather than you from them.