Don’t Hold Your Horses
Posted by danieljkoren on June 4, 2011 in Devotional | ∞
Fear starts galloping away with my faith at breakneck speed sometimes. Unknowns can terrify me. Sicknesses, financial issues, and a stampede of other wild horses used to push me over the edge. Fortunately, I learned a secret to keep fear from killing me.
Let it run
Now, of course I pray and read my Bible to overcome the fear, but to help stabilize my mind, I do this: let the wild horse of fear run to exhaustion. Have you ever had panic attacks like fear of losing your job?
If I lose my job how will I pay my bills, if I do not have money for bills what will I eat, what will I do if unemployment does not come through, what if I lose my car and cannot get another job, will-I-find-more-work, WHAT-IF-I-LOSE-MY-HOUSE, IMAYHAVETOLIVEONTHESTREET!
See how the wild horse of fear picks up speed as it goes. Ever notice how exhausted you feel after pulling in the reigns on fear. You try to get your galloping imagination to at least slow to a walk, but it leaves you dripping with sweat, shaking from the exertion of the fight.
So let the reigns go. Let fear run. How often do you get a free ride like this? Hang onto the saddle and let the wind blow through your hair as the steed of terror lopes across the open plain of your imagination. Run as it might, it cannot hurt you.
All fear ends at the same place
It does not matter what fear horse you are riding: disease, finances, danger, loneliness, or any other stallion. They all run to the same cliff of death. The secret is knowing that fear cannot kill you. When fear jumps off that cliff, you survive. Let your fear commit suicide, and then get on with life. Jesus said we should not fear people (or anything else) that can only kill our body but not our soul (Matthew 10:28).
A child of God lives beyond death. Fear, however, does not. When your fear dashes toward the horizon and tries to kill you, it will only be killing itself. After you give free reign to fear and it shows you yourself huddled under a bridge freezing in the cold because the worst has happened, ask this question: “So, then what?”
Fear will show you yourself dead under that bridge.
So, ask, “And then what?”
Fear is done. It just went over the cliff. It cannot show you anything beyond death because it ends there. Fear died, not you.
Put your fears out to pasture
People spend their lives grooming and trotting around on their fears. Let yours out the gate and then shut it. If one tries to run off with you, just let it go until it self-destructs. And then, stop trying to push a dead horse. Start living.
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. (1 John 4:18)