Seized with fear...

Do not be seized with alarm and struck with fear; only keep on believing. 

While this does sound like a wonderful lyric from an old Journey song, it actually is part of a verse from Mark 5:36.

I personally struggle with fear, anxiety and worry.  I will do these three things daily, until Jesus heals me of this, or shows me how He wants me to overcome these attacks, but anyway, today this scripture presented itself in my life, only hours after, I had indeed been seized with alarm and struck with fear.

I have been believing for several months, some days are harder than others, for a relationship that I believe God has given to me, to be healed and restored.  I have been pretty diligent about praying and trying my best to be positive, and believing and adhering to the words that the Holy Spirit has given to me.

Again, some days are harder than others, and today, while it was a normal day, it turned into a moment or moments that became extremely difficult.

Every week I go and spend time with a Christian counselor and discuss things from my past and current events.  We will talk and share about God, then pray and begin our “sessions” as she likes to call them.   I have noticed a rise in my attacks from satan recently and so we are focusing, with God’s help, on spiritual warfare and how I can resist and more importantly, fight back against satan. 

Today as we were entering into one of our sessions, she was praying for God to be with us, and for Him to reveal things to me that He wants us to look at and heal from.  In the midst of this prayer I hear whispered to me, he is not coming because he is leaving this earth.

Immediately, I interrupted her praying and said out loud what I had just heard.  At this point my heart has just begun to beat a little faster, and I can feel my breathe becoming shallow, and quicker.   I could feel in that instant my body tense up, and tears beginning to form in my eyes. 

I was struck, seized, overtaken, whatever word you want to use, with the fear that something had, or was getting ready to happen to my loved one.   I could physically feel the fear winning and taking over my body.  I could feel the ability to stay calm and rational leaving, and being replaced with panic and a lack of control on reality.

If you have ever been afraid, I mean afraid, you will understand all of these feelings.  If you have ever had that one phone call that changes your life, you understand exactly what I am feeling in that moment. 

I am so thankful that in that moment, one that happens to me quite often, but in different ways, I was with my counselor, and she was able to immediately pray for protection over me, and more importantly over my loved one.   I also then spoke back to satan, who we both believe was trying to distract me, the only way he knows how, to stop me from hearing from God. 

I hate to say but in those five to ten minutes, it worked. 

So interesting enough, when I start reading in Mark 5 I come across verse 36 that says “Overhearing” but  ignoring what they said, Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, Do not be seized with alarm and struck with fear; only keep on believing.

I read this and thought, this was me, just a few hours ago!  I understand this verse, this feeling and this statement, because I was all of these things today, and shamefully, at many other times in my life.

I realized or had my feelings confirmed that today’s events were truly to stop me from sharing time, words, and emotions with God.  To keep me from advancing in the call that God has placed on my life.  This moment was to keep me tethered to my fear, and to satan himself. 

This is not how I want to live, nor how Jesus wants me to life.  This is not how you should live either!! 

Thankfully in that moment Jesus did what we should all expect Him to do, He rescued me. 

He revealed Himself in a mighty way, and allowed the thing that satan tried to do to me to hold me back, and made it work for good.   I allowed, and please notice I said allowed, the Holy Spirit to comfort me and guide me.  I asked for help and I spoke all of these things out loud.

I accepted the peace that Jesus was giving me, and I also asked Jesus to give me clarity on the situation, so that I can learn for future attacks.   I did, to the best of my ability, what verse 36 says, keep on believing.

There are moments when fear attacks us, stops us in our tracks and proceeds to dump horrible thoughts into our minds, and we allow that to happen.  We allow satan to use our minds, hearts and lives, as his personal junk yard, and fill us with thoughts God would never give us. 

We then take it a step farther, we then believe them.

I did… for a moment, today, I believed the lies from satan.  I believed the lies over the promises.  I believed myths over facts and I believed satan over Jesus. 

We have all done this, we have all one way or another, have fallen victim to the cunning lies of satan and all we can do in those times, are exactly what verse 36 says, keep on believing.

When you choose to believe what the Holy Spirit has told you, or what the Bible says, over the lies of the enemy you are doing just that… believing.

It doesn’t take any more energy to believe God over satan, but what it does do is saves you from precious stolen time.  I lost time today.  I lost precious time with God that I will never have back.  I let my emotions get out of hand and worse yet, I allowed satan to be the one who played me like a yo yo.

We have the ability to fight back against evil.  WE have the ability to stand firm in our faith and our truth.  We have what it takes to stand and keep believing because we have Jesus. 

Jesus is our truth, He is our witness, He is our guardian and He is what we should be placing our lives, beliefs and trust in, not our emotions, not our surroundings and most certainly not the lies that the enemy brings. 

The Bible tells us, Do not be seized with alarm and struck with fear; only keep on believing and this my friends, is the truth and the life!