Fear has many voices.

I heard it today as I spoke to the lady from our church. She needs a procedure before she can keep getting dialysis to stay alive. She is afraid of being put under, afraid to die.

My daughter squeezed my hand tightly as we walked from our house to the center of the city. We passed several homeless people and two of them were in the process of taking drugs…something we see far too often in our big, British city. She’s become afraid of these people.

I just met with the special education teacher at my son’s school. They have finally agreed to do several assessments to try to understand his learning difficulties. The teacher tells me, “It’s only two years before he goes to secondary school, that’s not much time. We have to get this figured out.” She speaks the fear I have been feeling for some time. How is he going to manage in a secondary school?

My friend’s daughter starts crying as she shares about future choices. It’s time for her to go to university and she has decided it makes the most sense to go back to the States but she is scared to leave her family. She doesn’t want to be alone. The fear brings her to tears.

Fear…if I stopped to add up the number of times that fear knocks on the door of my mind each day, I wonder how high I would count? How many times do I not even realize it’s fear speaking?

The reality is that as a child of God, fear is not part of my inheritance. God offers me His perfect love in place of my fear. 1 John 4:18 says “Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear.” So, each time fear comes knocking, I need to first recognize its voice and call it what it is. Then I get to take that fear to Jesus and leave it with Him. He gives me His perfect love in place of that fear. His love is enough to replace every fear. That is why this verse needs to be on repeat in my mind each day. His love is enough to replace every fear. He will never leave me nor forsake me. I choose to trust Him.