Story time.
Imagine with me that it’s a cool Indian winter night. You and your team are in a remote village, leading a service for Christians in the community. You sing some songs, share some testimonies, and preach some sermons. After finishing the service, the pastor asks you and your team to pray with everyone who has come. As you walk into the crowd, people are continuously pushing towards you for prayer. After you’ve been praying for a few minutes, you hear high-pitched shrieking coming from a young woman across the crowd. You’ve never heard that noise before, but you automatically know that it isn’t from this world. You don’t know what to do, so you continue praying for the person in front of you.
After you finish praying, the elders lead you and your team back to the front of a crowd. They tell you that a woman is being oppressed by a demon, and they want you and your team to pray for her. As you and your team pray, the woman starts to violently writhing around on the floor. You continue to pray, and after a few minutes the woman sits calmly up.
What was I thinking?
Rewind to what was going on internally for me. Growing up, I’ve always had a fear of ever experiencing anything like that. I thought that if I did, I would be utterly fearful. As we were walking up to pray over the woman, my first reaction was honestly fear. As soon as I felt that emotion arise, I remembered 2 Timothy 1:7, “For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power, love, and self-control.” As soon as I thought of that verse, the fear instantly left me. As we knelt down and started to pray, God’s presence was so evident. I was completely overwhelmed by God’s love. We invited God to show up, and He did. As strange as it may sound, it was a time of worship for me. I felt God’s power and love move in a way that I never had before. After a few minutes of praying, the woman sat calmly up and looked into our eyes. The demon was cast out, and the woman professed Christ as Lord over everything.
Fear. It ain’t from God.
Something I’ve learned in this instance and in many other experiences is that Satan uses fear to cripple us. He can use it to keep you from going up to that stranger and showing them God’s love, all because of the fear of how they might react. He can use it to keep you from blessing someone financially, all because of the fear that God won’t provide. And he can use it to keep you from experiencing God in a different way, all because of a fear that it’s different from anything you’ve ever grown up with. No matter what God calls you to do, don’t let fear keep you from stepping out in faith.
1 John 4:18 “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.”
