Fear is a terrible thing. But it’s also universal. Young or old, rich or poor, from a Manhattan skyscraper to a jungle in the Amazon—everyone experiences fear at some time or another. For some, experiencing fear is occasional or rare. For others, fear is daily and pervasive.

Regardless, the big question is how do we get rid of fear?

Define the fear

The first challenge in overcoming fear is to define it. Merriam-Webster defines fear as “an unpleasant often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger.” That’s helpful, but what exactly is an emotion? Who defines danger?  

One view of emotions or feelings is they’re simply by-products of the physical world in which we live. We want more good emotions and fewer bad ones. Ideal circumstances and surroundings will produce good emotions. Danger is anything that might disrupt those ideal situations. 

In cases where fear becomes problematic, we can label it as an illness, offering various treatments, therapies, or medications that will (hopefully) make the fear go away.

The Bible’s definition of fear

The Bible offers a very different view of fear. 

The first time fear appears in Scripture is in Genesis 3. Adam and Eve were living in absolute utopia with the perfection in the Garden of Eden. All they had to do each day was enjoy the garden, enjoy each other, and decide what they wanted to eat. God Himself visited them every evening.

Life was good until Satan appeared. He created doubt in their minds as to the goodness of God. Then, he deceived them to sin by doing the one thing that God specifically told them not to do.  

When God visited that evening they were nowhere to be found prompting God to ask: “Adam, where are you?”  Adam responds by saying: “I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.”

Fear is the absence of God

Fear entered the world when man’s fellowship with God was broken by sin. Simply put, fear is the absence of God. When God is a part of any equation His perfect love and presence dispels fear just as light dispels darkness. Remove Him from the equation and fear immediately fills the void.

John put it this way in 1 John 4:18: “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear,  For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.”

Couple this with Isaiah 26:3-4: “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in You.”

This simple, yet immensely powerful verse promises that God Himself will keep a person’s heart in His perfect peace, provided that person keeps his thoughts and trust focused on God. Therefore, the absence of God’s perfect peace is an indication that our thoughts and trust are in something or someone other than God. 

Fear’s role in spiritual warfare

Spiritual warfare is Satan’s relentless attacks to separate us from God. His strategy is unchanged from Genesis 3:

• Did God really say? (Once he realized Eve didn’t know what God said it was all over.)
• You won’t die.  (God specifically said they would, spiritually if not physically.) 
• You’ll be like God. (You will be in control. That was the final blow, creating the illusion that they could take better care of themselves than God would,)

So why does God allow the things that make us afraid? Illness, war, famine, hurt, pain, poverty, loneliness, homelessness, and crime?  

For that matter why did He leave the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden in the first place? Why didn’t He cut it down or at least put a fence around it? 

The answer is really quite simple. He loves us, and He wants us to choose to love Him.

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”  (ESV)

God gave us fear to detect spiritual attacks

He created us in His image to spend eternity with Him in a place where no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him. (1 Corinthians 2:9). 

This life is about that life and His purpose for this life is to prepare us for that life. The first step is our salvation—the one-time event of our being born again by realizing that our sin has separated us from Him, confessing that sin, and accepting Him as our Savior and Lord.  

The second step is the process of our sanctification which begins at salvation and continues until He calls us home. Sanctification is our growing and changing, learning to love Him, to know Him, and to trust Him in and through both the good and the bad circumstances of life. 

You cannot love a God you do not trust. You cannot trust a God you do not love. God loves us dearly and wants only the best for us. He desires that we love and trust Him alone to provide it. Satan relentlessly wants us to love and trust anything but God. 

That’s spiritual warfare. Fear is a God-given emotion that serves to alert us to the danger of spiritual attack.

A few helpful strategies in overcoming fear

Remember who God is

Do you know that you are truly saved and born again? Only His perfect love is sufficient to cast out fear.  If there is any doubt whatsoever now is the time to be sure. 

Talk with your pastor, a mature Christian friend or relative, or go to peacewithgod.net for help.

Journal your fears

Writing down and describing your fears in specific terms is a helpful way to transform subjective emotions into objective concepts. Be sure to list dates, times, and anything specific that may have triggered that fear.

Notice patterns

As you keep journaling a common theme may emerge. It may be a specific fear of illness or injury to you or a loved one, or the loss of a loved one, or financial loss, or being a victim of crime, or failure, or being alone, or being homeless, or clowns, heights, or flying.  

The possibilities are literally endless but Satan only needs one to accomplish his purpose. There’s nothing inherently wrong with desiring good health, or loved ones, or money or safety, or security. The problem is when they become of greater importance to us than God Himself. At that point even His blessings can become idols.

Read the Bible

Once you have identified the specific fear or fears, that topic is most likely a subject that Scripture addresses.  Your Pastor, Sunday school teacher, or a mature Christian friend or relative, or a Biblical counselor can help you find Scriptures that are relevant to your fear(s).

John 8:31-32 promises: “If you abide in My Word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the Truth and the Truth will set you free.”

The truth will set you free from fear

Having identified the fear, the Scriptures that are relevant, and acting on those principles through trust and obedience will draw us closer to the Lord Himself as true disciples. The result of that growing relationship with Christ is that we will know Him better and will be set free from our fears.  

Four verses later John tells us: “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”

King David, the only person identified as a man after God’s own heart, said in Psalm 34:4 that: “I sought the Lord, and He heard me, and delivered me from all of my fears.”

Notice that David sought the Lord, he sought a person, and the Lord heard him and delivered him from all of his fears. 

 A. W. Tozer said so well that: “When the Lord is put in His rightful place a thousand problems are solved at once.”

Know when to ask for help

Fear may be an indication that we’ve been distracted from our love for and trust in God.  

When Peter’s focus was on the Lord, he walked on the waves of the storm. But when he saw the wind, he sank like a rock.  

As he went under the waves he made a crucial decision to cry out to the Lord with the shortest prayer in the Bible “Jesus, help!” With that the Lord grabbed his arm and got him back in the boat.  

Peter could have chosen to solve the problem himself by swimming back to the boat, or asking the other disciples for help, or he could have drowned, but thankfully he chose wisely. May we also choose wisely to see fear as an opportunity to grow and change spiritually.