** My teammate Mantha and I wrote this together (why the writing is so much better than my usual posts)!!
For the past two weeks, Mantha and I have been training Dominguez, our host family’s beautiful bay–and extremely skiddish—horse. The first time we took him out, he was fearful of everything. He jumped at the sound of sticks breaking, the feel of the halter on his face, and the ever-terrifying movement of one of us fixing our hair. (Scary stuff, huh?)
In teaching him to overcome his fears, we found God had a lot to teach us about fear ourselves.
Confronting your fear head-on will expose your fear for the harmless, conquerable thing it is. When he’s afraid of our hands, we do it repeatedly until he realizes they’re not scary; we were just waving or scratching our mosquito bites. Sometimes God does the same thing with us. He presents us with our fear over and over and over again until we realize that it’s not this scary apocalyptic thing we’ve made it out to be. “When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. In God, whose word I praise—in God I trust and am not afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?” Psalm 56:3-4 NIV. We tell Dominguez every time he spooks at us, “you are stronger than us.” Our hands can’t do real damage to his 2,000-lb physique. The 8-inch long Chihuahua snapping at his legs could easily be trampled by them, yet he bolts away from her in fear. It seems ridiculous, but we react the same way to innocuous things in our lives. Everything on this earth pales in comparison to God’s strength, so why with God on our side, are we so afraid of earthly things?
Fear causes us to seek affirmation from others and convinces us that we need people to validate us. Dominguez thinks he needs constant rubs behind his ear to know he’s doing the right thing. He looks to whoever is closest to him, rather than the one who is truly leading and directing him. But without that extra coaxing, he still knows what to do and what the commands mean. By seeking affirmation in others, we distance ourselves from the only voice that matters, God’s.
Overcoming fear is like a rollercoaster. You may overcome it one day, but those same frightful feelings could spike up again. Sometimes we spend 30 minutes desensitizing Dominguez to the blue rag he hates so much, and he calms down and lets us rub him all over with it. But it’s not uncommon to see him two or three days later, backing away from that same blue rag, his eyes wide with panic. We hear all the time the misconception that a fear resurfacing means God never conquered it to begin with. But our flesh can cause us to feel the fear again, and that doesn’t invalidate the way God brought you through that fear the last time. “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’” Because of Christ, when fear resurfaces, we do not have to fall victim to it. Instead, we can call out to God, who delivers us from it, time and time again.
Our past moves with us in ways we don’t expect. Dominguez may not know exactly why he’s scared of a saddle or a certain tone of voice, but past experience has shaped his present actions/feelings. But he has unknowingly tucked those experiences away, and let them share a shelf with his natural instincts. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” John 14:27 NIV
You can’t run from your fears, you have to battle them. The first few times we tried to walk Dominguez through trees, he would run through at full speed. Overtime, he realized that the trees were not consuming or attacking him, and he can easily walk through them unscathed. It took him pressing into that fear in order to conquer it. In a situation where his instinct was ‘flight,’ we told him to choose ‘fight’ instead, and he realized that walking through your fear (or trees) is less scary than sprinting away.
Fear is a motivator, but love is a better one. We can get Dominguez to do things out of fear, but it’s only temporary. Love lasts. When we show him love, he not only obeys our commands, but wants to please us and do the right thing. God is love. When you learn the person leading you is leading you with love, you can trust that they will lead you well. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6 NIV
