Whispers of fear

The recent events/news about the woman getting stabbed on a train while just minding her own business, and a man getting shot at the college campus for just sharing his opinions. All this latest news has brought so much fear into my life. After watching the video of the girl in the train, I couldn’t sleep that night because I started to feel afraid. I travel almost every other weekend to California. I usually take the plane and then a shuttle from the airport to the parking lot very early in the morning, when it’s still dark. I’ve always wrestled with fear, and I’ve worked through it for so many years with the help of God, but these recent events triggered all of those fears and felt as though I was back to square one.

In the weeks following the recent events, I found myself afraid to do even simple things like going out to restaurants to eat or even sleep through the night. Every small sound would wake me up. I was tormented and paralyzed by fear and was sleep-deprived and tired for a few weeks because of the lack of sleep. One night, as I was having a hard time going to sleep, I got this dream as though my friend and I were standing in a parking lot with our car, and some ladies on the other side were staring at us, and I didn’t feel right in my Spirit, so told my friend to get in the car and I kept driving. As I was driving, I saw groups of people everywhere, and they all had weird faces that looked disfigured, and their bodies looked more like a human’s. As I was driving, I kept saying, “Jesus help us, Jesus send your angels to protect us. I kept saying that, and suddenly I got woken up from my sleep. The dream felt incredibly real, and it left me feeling uneasy.

That dream actually reminded me that we are not fighting against flesh and blood but against principalities and power and I was actually in a Spiritual Warfare. According to Ephesians 6:10-12, “10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places” (New American Standard Bible).

I tried reading psalm 91 and printed psalm 91 verses all over the home and started to pray over the home. I was getting better sleep for few days, but fear used to creep back in, and it was daily battle. Recently, I’ve been able to sleep better maybe because I’ve been really tired. One of the things that’s helping me is to let it go and let God take care of me. When I tried to control or try to protect myself with my own strength, I was only panicking. I had to let it go in a way where even if something bad happens God is still in control and I’m not. Maybe that was the lesson God was trying to teach me through all this. A lot of times that’s exactly how we think of God as if we need to keep controlling things and if not, everything will fall apart. That’s like we are giving too much control to ourselves than God. I haven’t fully mastered fear yet as there are days I still go through fear and anxiety, and I need God’s grace each day.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use wisdom by locking our homes or try to take the shuttle when it’s not too dark or try to pay more to park closer to the airport, so I don’t have to take a shuttle. All we can do is to take any steps that’s within our control to be safe and leave the rest to God and not be paralyzed by fear. No wonder the Bible says clearly that fear is not from God, according to I Timothy 1:7, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (New King James Version) and it also says 365 times not to fear.

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