"Are we brave?" Am I brave?
A good question...one that I have had to face quite regularly over the past year or so. My fears have made me small, and have made God even smaller (cf. P. Gabriel's "Darkness").
It has been helpful for me to stop trying to psychoanalyze fear and instead to pray and no longer give the fearful thoughts any attention. I have been, in essence, shutting them out or no longer giving them an audience.
It's also been really sobering to ask God to help me give up my idols; these are the pleasures that I run to when I am afraid.
Final thought, I am shocked at how fear and anger are related. They are, strange as it may seem, intimate bedfellows. I can point to so many times when the two emotions are in the same vicinity at the same time. Coincidence?
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4 comments:
'Do not be afraid' is the command mentioned the MOST in the Bible.
Also....anger is a secondary emotion. Underlying is always fear, pain, insecurity, etc. Think of why you get angry & you will find there is always some deeper insecurity. Anger is a defense mechanism......when we are obedient to God's will & we can trust Him with our lives & circumstances to work all things for good, then we will see the anger subside. Of course, it's still OK to be angry sometimes....that's not a sin....but we do need to take a deeper look at ourselves to figure out if there's something deeper we need to address.
Good points Kevin! Keep in touch!
OK, if I agree that anger is a secondary emotion, perhaps to fear, then how does this help me when I am tempted to act in sinful anger? I don't usually have enough time to psychoanalyze myself and then choose to "talk myself out of" acting in anger. Also, if I am totally honest, I would have to say that it is much easier to choose anger over and against battling my sinful nature.
Perhaps, what I am pointing a finger at is a flaw in my practical theology. I am questioning just how helpful "self-awareness" and/or "self-actualization" is toward obedience? Do these psychological tools really contribute tangibly to holiness and the mortification of the flesh or do these tools just encourage more selfishness?
Self-awareness is key to fighting where Satan already knows you are weak! You might as well have that information too, otherwise he's already ahead of you! Of course, I think you should obey God even if you don't understand WHY you are feeling angry, but Satan will keep attacking you in this weak spot unless you identify what the underlying problem is & then work on fixing it. Seek God in the places where you feel weak, insecure, scared, etc.
For me, I have emptied myself of a lot of my sinful nature, but I need to be filled with the Holy Spirit or I will find something else to fill that void & most likely it will be something sinful. God made us to be filled with good things like the fruit of the Spirit (from my Beth Moore study on Fruits of the Spirit) but instead we fill up on food, buying things we don't need, bad relationships, etc. The thing you need to figure out is WHAT is making you feel angry because there is something that needs to be replaced with something better. Ask God - He'll let you know what it is. Psalm 139:23
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