Fear Interrupts Joy

“Worry about tomorrow steals the joy of today.”

Barbara Cameron

New Year, New Post

First of all, welcome back! I hope you all had a fabulous new year’s and a fresh start to 2020.

Second, you’re probably wondering why I decided to include a dog as the “symbol” of this post. My topic is on fear. Trust me, I am not afraid of dogs.

I’m going to return to my earlier series on joy, which I had started but typical Nine style, I got distracted and life got ahead of me, and so I only ended up doing one post. But I’m going to try to be less distracted and NOTICE more about my habits and my surroundings this year (notice is our word of the year at my church for 2020 and I may do a post about that later)…but that’s distracting from the point again!

A Quick Tail 😉

Anyway, I’ll start out with a little story about my dog, Hobi. I wanted to include an image of him, but the computer wouldn’t let me 😦 (he does look a lot like the dog in the picture though!)

He has a heart condition, which causes him to cough quite frequently, often when he is overexerting himself. But lately, I’ve started noticing a pattern. He will be in the middle of having the time of his life, running around with his incredibly slobbery reindeer toy that has its limbs chewed off, and all of a sudden, in the midst of his joyous time, he stops and coughs. He leaves his fun, his toy, and goes away to be by himself to finish coughing.

Now, besides the fact that this makes me quite sad, I was starting to make parallels between this action and how we often allow fear to interrupt our joy. Let me explain further before you leave, thinking that I have just compared you to my scruffy dog.

What’s this got to do with me?

Sometimes, when we get an opportunity, we will run out there head-on and feel free, excited, and full of joy. But then…something stops us. Doubt, other people’s opinions, a sudden realization, an obstacle of some sort. Fear overcomes us and we lose that joy, that passion we had for something important to us. And we can’t let this continue to happen.

As I’m sure you are all aware, there are extremely high levels of depression, hopelessness, and anxiety in the world today. Many blame it on our society of comparison, social media, entertainment, more people = less chances for everyone, etc. While those may be valid reasons, I think a main one is fear. There is so much fear now that we have access to so many resources, the news just a tap away. While it’s good to stay informed, it’s also important to remember that we can’t let fear hold us back from what we are passionate about. When we lose that sense of motivation, we lose a part of ourselves.

Now, you might be tired of me talking about fear, because I do so frequently. But that’s because it’s a large part of my life, and I bet it is or has been of yours too. Now, the average person, especially someone at my church, might see me as a calm, undisturbed, reserved person. (Believe me, I’m not on the inside! I’ve just heard observations…) Well, the truth is, I have a lot of fear about things going wrong, what people think of me, and how the future will play out. I work very hard to mute my fearful side, and often the most that comes out is me sounding a little cautious about certain ideas, or I confirm things repeatedly to make sure that everything is all figured out.

While being prepared is good, allowing fear to hold us back is bad. Now, one might say that worry does not harm us, especially if we don’t release those to the world. I’d beg to differ. Fear deprives us of joy, because instead of enjoying the here and now, we are so focused on what’s might go wrong, that we forget to realize everything that’s gone right.

I’m not saying that we can’t appreciate what’s happened in the past, and we should allow there to be some space for negative emotions to be exposed so that we can process them and move forward. But I’m saying that you can stop worrying about what’s going to happen next. We can continue to pursue that opportunity (if God wills it of course) and maneuver through the rough times in order to come out of the experience a better person. Those things that we fear might actually be what we are thanking God for later in our lives.

My Challenge to You

Tomorrow, the next day, the next week, the next month…(you get the idea), I want you to take the time to write down what you are afraid of. That’s right, I want you to recognize them. I want you to look at them and see if those are practical things for you to be concerned about. And then, I want you to write one thing that has gone well for you for each of the things that you’re afraid of. It might not flow as easily at first, but eventually you will be able to see how God is working through all those things, and that there are still things to have joy about.

In the long term, the next time you hear something that should be a source of joy, I want you to celebrate. It can be anything, something big or something small. Celebrate those victories and forget about the fear for a little while. Trust me, you will feel better about yourself and the situation afterwards.

My call of action to you: live with hope for the future, not fear!

“When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought joy to my soul.”

~Psalm 94:19