Fear is a clever adversary.
When we think of fear, the first things that come to mind are old, decrepit Victorian mansions or abandoned houses fueled by stories of stories of swinging chandeliers or doors that creak open on their own.
Or we might think of less dramatic fears: heights or flying or small spaces.
Unless youâre suffering from one of these or other phobiasâor ghostsâit is rather easy to simply discard fear as something other people experience.
But fear is not so simple.
Most often, it sneaks into mind and festers and builds like a bacteria that, if untreated, to infection, sepsis, and even death.
You can try preventative measures to keep it at bay, but bacteria can still get in. And you never know until youâre infected until the symptoms appear.
This is the primary modus operandi of fear.
It sneaks in, debilitates, and even paralyzes.
Ultimately, it renders its victim completely helpless.
This came to light during an unrelated discussion with my wife.
We have been trying to put the finishing touches on my next manuscript, which frankly has been simmering on the backburner over the last several due to life distractions. Currently, it is coming down to fact-checking and formatting endnotes.
It is especially nerve-racking because, unlike my previous book, we chose to self-publish this one. We have to get it right. It is all on us.
Itâs been difficult to release the manuscript. Weâre haunted by the questions: is there more that can be done? Is the subject even all that relevant anymore? What am I missing?
We check and recheck every detail.
We donât want to let go and send it into a very cruel world.
We both recognized this paralysis after hearing ourselves begin everything with the phrase: âIâm afraidâŚâ
This realization suddenly made this year make sense.
I have felt a bit off most of the year. I have become more subdued, resigned, troubled. I thought I was hiding it okay until a former (and very discerning) student came up to me recently and asked, âMr. H., are you sad?â
That simple, innocent question shook me into an awareness. I donât necessarily think I am depressed, but something is not right.
Since then, between that question and this recent epiphany with my wife, I realized that fear has crept into my life and is now controlling my psyche.
The first part of 2026 has been difficult. Now, I wonât pretend that it was somehow more difficult than others. But it has been tough. The remainder of 2026 has been trying to recover from it.
Last March, within days of the door slamming shut on my wifeâs 25-year career, I lost my mom. In a way, I lost her over the last several years as she sank into dementia, but last March her battle ended.
Add this to standard stresses associated with a second semester in a high school, which in and of itself is enough to deplete my tanks. Now I have to tap into mental and emotional resources that donât exist.
Fast forward to the present and I can see how God was with us in the storm. He gave me mental and emotionally resources, I never knew existed. He took care of us despite a huge income drop and being uninsured for a couple of month. Further, I know that my mom is now thinking more clearly than I could ever dream.
God gets the glory.
However, the enemy used a different tactic to paralyze me. Out of these hardship, fear crept in. And now I realize I am infected with it.
Watching my mom sink into the darkness of dementia, I have become afraid that one day I might suffer from that myself. I am afraid of losing my mind.
Unfortunately, once fear has a foothold, it doesnât stop there. Fear escalated from fearing dementia to fearing getting old in general.
I am only a few months away from leaving behind my fifties forever. I began to fear getting old.
I fear my body slowing down. Simple things become a little harder. My back, my knees, and feet start to hurt a little more. I have a little more trouble hearing someone in a noisy room. I am doing that weird thing with my glasses when transitioning between reading close up and at a distance. It takes longer to get over a cold. Last July, I turned an ankle in Colorado that still aches today. The thought of not driving because driving in the winter or at night just isnât worth the risk. I donât want to give up the things that require the energy I had when I was young. How many summer road trips do I have left? What happens when I can no longer match the energy of a classroom of high school students?
Fear takes that into a whole new direction. I really donât want to stop teaching. I love the classroom. I love the cycle of the school calendar. But what happens when my body canât keep up? Can my filters remain strong enough to keep me from saying something mean or stupid? Will I become tiresome, or in the way? Can I keep my teaching style and not turn into a grumpy old stooge? Worse yet, what happens when I become irrelevant?
I have found myself somewhat paralyzed by this fear.
And it has dragged me down.
It has made me âlook sad.â
All of this came together with the recent discussion with my wife.
Fear has overtaken me. It has taken control of me.
But is it too late?
Thankfully, no.
The most used phrase in the entirety of scripture is: âdo not be afraid.â
However, one important observation that seems to be overlooked is that that phrase is almost always spoken from the supernatural point of view: God to human, Jesus to human, heavenly messenger to human.
From a broader, heavenly perspective to a limited, natural one.
âDo not be afraid.â
I have thought about this constantly since that epiphany I had with my wife.
I should notâmust notâlive in fear. Not as a child of the King.
But how do you switch fear off? It is not as simple as a light switch.
Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 10:5: âWe demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.â
The enemyâs game plan is to always whisper thoughts into our head that will trigger fear.
We have to be on guard always. When we get the sense of fear, we must be deliberate and take that thought captive and replace it with truth: âMy God is biggerâ; âHe is my protector and comforterâ; âThis thought is not coming from himâ.
Fear does not sit on the throne, God does. Fear, by definition, is limited, God is infinite. Fear is merely a tool, God is the creator of everything, including us who are made in gis image. Only God can break through the paralysis fear brings and can heal us.
Does that mean those things I fear will never happen? No. They likely will. But however the upcoming years pan out, he is with you, with me.
And whatever the future brings, God is God. And he is good.
Fear is a clever adversary.
When we think of fear, the first things that come to mind are old, decrepit Victorian mansions or abandoned houses fueled by stories of stories of swinging chandeliers or doors that creak open on their own.
Or we might think of less dramatic fears: heights or flying or small spaces.
Unless youâre suffering from one of these or other phobiasâor ghostsâit is rather easy to simply discard fear as something other people experience.
But fear is not so simple.
Most often, it sneaks into mind and festers and builds like a bacteria that, if untreated, to infection, sepsis, and even death.
You can try preventative measures to keep it at bay, but bacteria can still get in. And you never know until youâre infected until the symptoms appear.
This is the primary modus operandi of fear.
It sneaks in, debilitates, and even paralyzes.
Ultimately, it renders its victim completely helpless.
This came to light during an unrelated discussion with my wife.
We have been trying to put the finishing touches on my next manuscript, which frankly has been simmering on the backburner over the last several due to life distractions. Currently, it is coming down to fact-checking and formatting endnotes.
It is especially nerve-racking because, unlike my previous book, we chose to self-publish this one. We have to get it right. It is all on us.
Itâs been difficult to release the manuscript. Weâre haunted by the questions: is there more that can be done? Is the subject even all that relevant anymore? What am I missing?
We check and recheck every detail.
We donât want to let go and send it into a very cruel world.
We both recognized this paralysis after hearing ourselves begin everything with the phrase: âIâm afraidâŚâ
This realization suddenly made this year make sense.
I have felt a bit off most of the year. I have become more subdued, resigned, troubled. I thought I was hiding it okay until a former (and very discerning) student came up to me recently and asked, âMr. H., are you sad?â
That simple, innocent question shook me into an awareness. I donât necessarily think I am depressed, but something is not right.
Since then, between that question and this recent epiphany with my wife, I realized that fear has crept into my life and is now controlling my psyche.
The first part of 2026 has been difficult. Now, I wonât pretend that it was somehow more difficult than others. But it has been tough. The remainder of 2026 has been trying to recover from it.
Last March, within days of the door slamming shut on my wifeâs 25-year career, I lost my mom. In a way, I lost her over the last several years as she sank into dementia, but last March her battle ended.
Add this to standard stresses associated with a second semester in a high school, which in and of itself is enough to deplete my tanks. Now I have to tap into mental and emotional resources that donât exist.
Fast forward to the present and I can see how God was with us in the storm. He gave me mental and emotionally resources, I never knew existed. He took care of us despite a huge income drop and being uninsured for a couple of month. Further, I know that my mom is now thinking more clearly than I could ever dream.
God gets the glory.
However, the enemy used a different tactic to paralyze me. Out of these hardship, fear crept in. And now I realize I am infected with it.
Watching my mom sink into the darkness of dementia, I have become afraid that one day I might suffer from that myself. I am afraid of losing my mind.
Unfortunately, once fear has a foothold, it doesnât stop there. Fear escalated from fearing dementia to fearing getting old in general.
I am only a few months away from leaving behind my fifties forever. I began to fear getting old.
I fear my body slowing down. Simple things become a little harder. My back, my knees, and feet start to hurt a little more. I have a little more trouble hearing someone in a noisy room. I am doing that weird thing with my glasses when transitioning between reading close up and at a distance. It takes longer to get over a cold. Last July, I turned an ankle in Colorado that still aches today. The thought of not driving because driving in the winter or at night just isnât worth the risk. I donât want to give up the things that require the energy I had when I was young. How many summer road trips do I have left? What happens when I can no longer match the energy of a classroom of high school students?
Fear takes that into a whole new direction. I really donât want to stop teaching. I love the classroom. I love the cycle of the school calendar. But what happens when my body canât keep up? Can my filters remain strong enough to keep me from saying something mean or stupid? Will I become tiresome, or in the way? Can I keep my teaching style and not turn into a grumpy old stooge? Worse yet, what happens when I become irrelevant?
I have found myself somewhat paralyzed by this fear.
And it has dragged me down.
It has made me âlook sad.â
All of this came together with the recent discussion with my wife.
Fear has overtaken me. It has taken control of me.
But is it too late?
Thankfully, no.
The most used phrase in the entirety of scripture is: âdo not be afraid.â
However, one important observation that seems to be overlooked is that that phrase is almost always spoken from the supernatural point of view: God to human, Jesus to human, heavenly messenger to human.
From a broader, heavenly perspective to a limited, natural one.
âDo not be afraid.â
I have thought about this constantly since that epiphany I had with my wife.
I should notâmust notâlive in fear. Not as a child of the King.
But how do you switch fear off? It is not as simple as a light switch.
Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 10:5: âWe demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.â
The enemyâs game plan is to always whisper thoughts into our head that will trigger fear.
We have to be on guard always. When we get the sense of fear, we must be deliberate and take that thought captive and replace it with truth: âMy God is biggerâ; âHe is my protector and comforterâ; âThis thought is not coming from himâ.
Fear does not sit on the throne, God does. Fear, by definition, is limited, God is infinite. Fear is merely a tool, God is the creator of everything, including us who are made in gis image. Only God can break through the paralysis fear brings and can heal us.
Does that mean those things I fear will never happen? No. They likely will. But however the upcoming years pan out, he is with you, with me.
And whatever the future brings, God is God. And he is good.
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