Crash the Chatterbox: Hearing God's Voice Above All Others (11 page)

Yet my experience of being terrorized by irrational fears did not stop at age nine.

It’s amazing how, in so many ways, my life is still replaying that scene. There are just different characters and higher-stakes situations.

I run from places and people God has called me to. I’m driven away from where God wants me to be by endless what-if scenarios. They may seem more sophisticated than
What if my family is killed before I get back home tomorrow and I have to live without them?
But in actuality, they’re every bit as irrational. What’s more, they’re downright unbiblical. And they severely limit my life and wreak havoc on my relationship with God.

I can’t always pinpoint the source of the fear, and it doesn’t usually have an obvious connection to a catastrophic event. But I’ve learned to recognize the sound of its voice when it starts chattering.

I set out to try something I’ve never tried before, and I hear,
What if you look like an idiot? After all, everyone else already knows how to do it, and you’re way behind. You’ll probably be awful at it anyway; you’re a slow learner
.

I set out to ask someone a question about something I don’t understand, and I hear,
What if they think you’re stupid for not already knowing that? What if you’re asking something that is basic knowledge to everyone else? What if they interpret your asking a question as a sign of weakness or incompetence and lose respect for you?

I set out to do something intentional and kind for others, and I hear,
What if they take advantage of you? What if they misunderstand your motives? What if they don’t even want your help and end up rejecting you? How will you handle that?

I set out to embrace a new discipline in my life, and I hear,
What if you commit to this and don’t have the perseverance to stick with it? Do you really want to take the chance that other people will watch you fail? If you don’t try or don’t commit to a specific goal in this area, at least you won’t run any risk of failure
.

The fact is, fear is both a global and a personal experience for all of us. We fear stuff we can’t control and at the same time tremble at the things we
can
control. We fear terrorist attacks and breast cancer. We fear opening e-mails that might contain bad news about our company or extra work from our boss or a hurtful remark from our sister. Whenever possible, we retreat to the safety of spiritual complacency, which is actually the most dangerous place of all.

The fact is, this kind of fear doesn’t just go away after a year. In fact, if left alone, it tends to compound, spread, and destroy. Little fears can cohabitate and combine to form levels of anxiety and terror that will annihilate our awareness of the presence of God.

I love the way the Amplified Bible translates 1 John 4:18:

I like it because it’s such an active verse and such an accurate description of the nature of fear. “Full-grown love
turns fear out of doors
.”

When I read that, I picture fear standing at the doorway of our destinies, daring us to step inside. I can hear all the different lines the chatterbox uses to intimidate us when we’re on the verge of doing something God has told us to do. Fear pushes us around like Nelson bullies Bart Simpson and Milhouse, and it holds a Keep Out sign over the adventure, wonder, and even simple everyday confidence God has called us to experience.

The other day I asked another author what is the most memorable fiction work he’s ever read. He told me about the novel
Something Happened
by Joseph Heller. It’s the first-person, stream-of-consciousness memoir of a middle-aged man named Bob Slocum, who is unraveling from within.

The book opens with a chapter titled “I Get the Willies.” Here’s an excerpt of Slocum’s internal dialogue:

What gives you the willies? What is the
something
that
happened sometime
that is keeping you out of the place God is calling you to today? What are the doors that remain closed because fear has posted Do Not Enter signs in certain hallways of your heart? What possibilities remain unexplored because of the endless what-if scenarios that the chatterbox is programmed to repeat every time the motion detectors sense you making a move toward the doorway?

What if I give generously and then don’t have enough to meet my own needs?

What if I go out of my way and nobody appreciates it?

What if I tell him how I feel, trying to get the relationship back to a place that honors God, and he turns it on me and it’s worse than before?

Since psychology isn’t the specialty of this book, we won’t get into detailed discussions about phobias, families of origin, or the pathology of fear. Or how our night-light burned out one time when we were four, and that’s why we’re scared of Christmas trees.

Instead, let’s look at the active response 1 John 4:18 commands us to take when faced with fear of any kind. Here, not only does John give us an action to take in order to overpower fear, but he also points us to the only power that makes defeating our fears possible.

First, the command. We are not only permitted but required to turn fear out of doors wherever we find it lurking in our lives. The Father is giving us permission to hit back. Therefore, our approach to dealing with fear cannot be passive. Because fear doesn’t evaporate. It must be
evicted
. Or, as the verse puts it,
every
trace
of terror must be
expelled
if we’re going to receive the fullness of what God wants to give us. The spirit of fear is never to be allowed any access or residency in the life of the believer.

In other words, you either
kick fear out
of your heart or it will
keep you out
of the places God has prepared for you.

If you keep handing the bully your lunch money, don’t act surprised when he keeps taking it. And if you wait until a day when your fears magically subside to begin to take the steps God prompts you to take—to go on a mission trip, to ask your sister-in-law for forgiveness, to lead a small group in your church—you’ll likely wait a lifetime.

I like this Dale Carnegie quote: “Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.”

The point is, we don’t get stronger in faith by avoiding our fears. What’s true about our physical bodies is also true about our spirits: the only way to get stronger is to work out. And we only overcome the paralysis of fear as we take our
next step
in faith. We initiate the conversation; we make the contribution; we show up for the meeting; we obey God in the small thing. And the momentum of each step pushes against the force field of fear, weakening its power to control us.

Of course, while this talk of fighting back may sound noble, even exciting, the truth is, our fears are strong. They’ve been building alliances and forming terrorist cells all our lives, collecting ammunition and drawing battle lines.

So, how do you turn fear out of doors when the fear towers above you like Hurricane Hugo overwhelms a nine-year-old?

According to 1 John, the only force in the world powerful enough to overtake fear is the
full-grown love
of God. Deciding to take your stand in the love of God in the battle against fear is akin to having Liam Neeson as your dad and telling him somebody’s messing with you.

Fear is the bully that stands at the door and refuses to let you through.
You can’t go back to college—you’re too old. You can’t go back to church—they’ll make fun of you
.

God’s great love is the reality that towers three feet above fear and says,
You mess with him, you mess with Me
. Fear has no choice but to relocate when God’s love grabs it by the collar and says,
You’re not welcome here
.

It’s decision time: Will you hide in the shadows of fear with Adam? Or respond to the voice of God’s love as it summons you to fight against fear and press forward into new victories?

We’ve mentioned a few of the what-ifs that fear attempts to use in dragging our minds down useless paths and keeping us out of hopeful places. Allow me to mention a few more.

What parent hasn’t been seized by the stranglehold of what-ifs set off when the phone rings late and the teenager is out with a freshly minted driver’s license? Or when the newborn has a fever, the doctor on call hasn’t called back, and the medicine isn’t helping?

What single person hasn’t felt ripples of anxiety when another birthday has passed and prospects for marriage haven’t brightened? When everyone around you seems to be happily spoken for, and the thought keeps recurring that maybe you’ll
never
find anyone. After all, you haven’t yet.

And what if? What if they don’t call? What if they do? What if I don’t get offered the job? What if I do? What if the alarm doesn’t go off? What if it goes off and I don’t hear it? What if I forgot something? What if I remember? What if I marry her and she’s not the one? What if I marry her and she is the one but I don’t like being married?

The world of what-ifs is a black hole, and it will suck your joy, peace, and hope into its vortex if you venture near its vicinity.

I should point out that considering the implications of our decisions and anticipating their consequences are not bad things. Every time I teach about how all fear is to be eliminated from the life of a believer, invariably this question will arise: “Aren’t some fears good to have?” For example, isn’t it good to be afraid of getting your foot caught under the lawnmower, texting while driving, or buying a house with a mortgage you can’t afford?

Of course we should be apprehensive about things that would harm our lives and be cautious about things that would damage us or others. But I wouldn’t classify that as walking in fear. I’d call it operating in wisdom. And it is supremely good to walk in wisdom. In fact, the Bible says that the fear of the Lord is the
beginning
of wisdom.

So in other words, there is only one kind of fear I can find in the Bible that God endorses: the fear of God.

Contrary to certain religious rhetoric, the fear of the Lord is not the fear that God is out to get you. As New Testament believers, we understand that God has come near to us in the person of Jesus and that what Christ did on the cross completely satisfied God’s wrath against sin. God will not take out on me what He’s already placed on Jesus. So now, because I have trusted Christ with my life, I never have to be scared of God.

What is the fear of God, then? It is being terrified of ever being outside of His protection. This kind of fear works
for
us, just like God Himself does, rather than against us. It can guide us and keep us on track when we’re being lured over the edge into courses of action we have no business considering.

But the other kind of fear, the chatterbox kind, is an entirely different genre. And it takes control when I start giving more weight to my
what-ifs
than to
what God says
. When you let the chatterbox take a valid concern, amplify it, and turn it into a consuming noise that is louder than God’s voice, the spirit of fear gains leverage. And then down you go, because your heart cannot be filled with faith in God at the same time it’s singing the refrain “What if …”

I love the story of the disciples in the storm the way Mark records it in his gospel.

The disciples were petrified of the storm, and they had every right to be. There was no onboard GPS, no boat-owner’s insurance, and it was
their
boat Jesus had borrowed for this ministry expedition. Their livelihoods, not to mention
their
lives
, flashed before their eyes. But finally Jesus “got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, ‘Quiet! Be still!’ ”
²

Did Jesus call for the end of the storm at this point because He was moved by the disciples’ pitiful state? Or because He was annoyed that Hurricane Hugo was disturbing his REM cycle? Either way, what happened next was a miracle:

The story tells me that Jesus wanted the disciples to know intuitively what all of His earthly miracles were meant to prove:
He
is Lord—He reigns over earth, sky, wind, storms, sickness, recession—and there is nothing beyond the realm of His authority.

But after He proves this definitively by shutting down the storm, the response of the disciples seems strange. According to the next verse, “they were terrified.”

Wait a minute. The storm is over. He told you to stop being afraid.

But as the context reveals, their terror is no longer connected to what they were going through: