Fear is normal, and some fears are good. Fearing God, for instance, cultivates godly courage within us. And yet, fear occasionally crushes us. We need people who will help us slow down and sit with us until we’re calm enough to begin evaluating what makes us afraid.
Fear is normal, and some fears are good. Fearing God, for instance, cultivates godly courage within us. And yet, fear occasionally crushes us. We need people who will help us slow down and sit with us until we’re calm enough to begin evaluating what makes us afraid.
Slowing down and digging into fear can be difficult, but, in community, we help regulate one another through the gift of presence. We simply need to come and sit, helping each other work through our fears, and lean into God, who is patient, trustworthy, and kind, our refuge in times of need.
Presented by The Austin Stone Institute and Austin Stone Counseling
Episode Transcript | Groups Guide
Recommended Resources
Episode Resources from The Austin Stone Institute
Untangling Emotions, by J. Alasdair Groves and Winston T. Smith
Podcast Production Team
Producer & Host: Lindsay Funkhouser
Content Experts: Shanda Anderson, LPC-S; Brittany Beltran, LPC; Andrew Dealy, LPC
Technical Producer: Aaron Campbell
Podcast Art: Stephen Mancha
Podcast Music: Matt Graham
Liturgy Writer: Dashon Moore
Liturgy Reader: Alex Espinoza
Groups Guide Writer: Erin Feldman
“Fear is an emotion that focuses my attention on myself rather than God. It robs me of peace and joy, because it clouds my view of who God truly is and causes me to forget His promises.”
“When I'm afraid, my thinking, my feeling, [and] my doing always becomes irrational. And I lose sight of reality or what's real. I read too much into what people say or the things that happen around me, and I just don't, I don't feel safe.”
“When I read the news, sometimes I just wish I had never even had kids because it scares me so much to raise them in this world.”
Lindsay: Welcome to Reframing Emotions, a podcast that helps us understand what it means to engage emotions from a biblical foundation and through healthy habits. I'm Lindsay Funkhouser with The Austin Stone Institute. And joining me again today are my friends and professional counselors Shanda Anderson, Brittany Beltran, and Andrew Dealy, who you've met in the previous two episodes. Could you go ahead and share a little bit about yourselves? Shanda, you want to start?
Shanda: Hey, my name is Shanda Anderson and I am the Director of Clinical Care at The Austin Stone Counseling Center. I get to supervise a lot of our LPC associates, and my heart is for the local church and discipleship, and [I] just have a heart for biblical counseling and offering the freedom that Jesus gives us to those who are suffering.
Brittany: I'm Brittany Beltran. I'm a licensed professional counselor and the Counseling Center Office Manager. And I'm excited to be with you today.
Andrew: And I'm Andrew Dealy, the Executive Director of The Austin Stone Counseling Center and Director of Soul Care for The Austin Stone Community Church. [I’m] also a licensed professional counselor and glad to be here as well.
Lindsay: So far in this series, we've discussed a framework and a foundation that comes from the Bible for understanding and processing our emotions. We talked about shame. And so this week we're going to talk about fear. Brittany, will you start us off with a definition about fear?
Brittany: Sure. So when we think about fear, we can think about it as a response to a perceived threat. So what that's like in your body is—you could feel your heart start to race, body temperature rise. You might feel, like, a sudden sensation in your arms or to move. Or a lot of people will leg tap or tap their finger, or things like that.
And so there's activation. That's also where that initial, like, fight or flight response comes from. It’s that immediate response to that perception of something I value is now being threatened.
Lindsay: And so, is there a conscious thought when I experience those things, maybe like the chills, or the feeling of my stomach falling out? Is that a conscious thing? Or that's fight or flight just happening without us realizing it?
Brittany: So I would say that immediate response is probably the fight or flight. It's that implicit memory that we talked about a couple episodes back, that your body remembers things and has moved it to the unconscious, so it can respond quicker to those threats that are presented in your life.
So we talk about the fight or flight response, and actually there are more “f's” that are being added to that. The freeze, faint, flop. Familiar with the fainting goats. If you haven't looked that up—oh my gosh, it's so worth it—that their fear response, they just go rigid and fall over as a means of protecting themselves.
Andrew: That level of fear, when we talk about fight or flight, is such a visceral deep response that, in terms of being a conscious response, I'd say more often than not, no. It’s so fast. It's not thought through; it just hits you. In extreme cases, if you feel an immediate threat, or you can think of it, even, if you hear a scary noise that you weren't prepared for—somebody slams the door behind you—your body just jumps. That type of fear is in that fight or flight range.
But then there's kind of a gradient beyond that where we'd feel fear, maybe, in our stomach or in muscle tension or something like that, that we have more cognizance of what's happening before we move into action. So fight or flight is high end. Body-brain going: Something is so dangerous. I have to move us now. And then there's more of a continuum that we could think through; feeling fear that we have more time to respond to.
Shanda: One thing that I think is helpful when I'm talking with clients is to recognize that it's our associated meaning and what we have attached to a specific thing that can elicit some of that bodily response and our reactive efforts to stay safe in those moments.
Because, if you hear a rustling in the bushes, somebody might think that's a snake. Like me. I grew up in east Texas, had a lot of rehearsed understanding of, Beware there's a threat. There's a potential danger there. And so if I hear leaves rustling, my mind might intuitively think it's a snake. But somebody who didn't grow up in an area where snakes were predominant, when they hear a rustling in the leaves, they might think it's a squirrel. And there's no fear attached to it. And so again, it's driven by oftentimes the meaning that we attach to it and our connected realities of what we think is in danger, by whatever belief we are projecting onto that experience.
Lindsay: So fear is the thing that signals our brain there might be danger. Does that mean fear is good?
Andrew: So I think it can be. I love what Shanda was hitting on here, ‘cause this goes all the way back to the first episode when we talked about the fun term, implicit memory, the memories we have that we're not really conscious of but teach us the things that are good, the things that are bad, that kind of frame our emotions from childhood all the way to where we are now. So the implicit memory that teaches us, Hey, a thing that looks like a snake. Our brain, before we're conscious of it, is going to interpret that as dangerous. We're going to have an emotional response to it based on that imagery, because that's how implicit memory works and keeps us safe. It's a healthy brain.
And so in a fallen world where there are dangers, that type of fear, that fight or flight response, is absolutely tailored to keep us alive, to keep us safe. If there is an actual poisonous snake on the floor, I want my body to respond and get away before I have time to think, Oh, should I respond? And then the snake bites me. I want my body to be safe. My brain knows that. And so my brain in many ways will take over in that moment and be like, Hey, we can get to safety first.
And if it turns out it was just a rope on the floor, we can laugh about it later. But at least you'll then be alive. Because if we get it wrong, the other direction? Well, we're not gonna be laughing about anything at that point. And so there's definitely good fear. But just like all the other emotions, it can be cultivated in ways that are unhelpful or maladaptive in life.
Shanda: I've heard the good version of fear expressed as “constructive concern.” That we also have the category of recognizing that fear is attached to worship or love; that we have an implicit desire to protect the things that are valuable to us. And so, we can find ourselves moving toward that fearful moment in an expression of value and love and care, concern. And some of the illustrations that we often use when we think about that idea of what are we worshiping? What are we loving? What's at the core? That central heart, that out of the overflow of the heart the mouth is speaking. We can see where that can go sideways, where good things become ultimate things.
And the double-sided coin we often work out of is fear and lust, where it's, lust is something that I crave, that if I think if I could just get this thing that I would be okay. I'm moving toward the desire of my heart, that I think that I need it.
But the reality is that once I get whatever that thing is, if, by chance, I'm able to attain it, then I want to grasp onto it, ‘cause I'm afraid I'm going to lose it. And that's where we'd say fear would come up as an effort to control, to keep the thing that I desperately think I need to be okay.
And so fear can be a distorted expression of worship. And that concern goes beyond what It's intended to, and I'm trying to hold onto something in an unhelpful way, where it's become an ultimate thing in my life, and it's becoming what rules me, what consumes me, what overwhelms my heart. And then that fear is then [provoking] me, just trying to keep the thing that I think is right and good, and ultimately saying that I might love that thing a little too much.
Lindsay: That's really helpful, I think, to perceive that fear is something that's cultivated.
Once we attach a level of worship that's due to God to things in our lives or things that we want, then we chase them so hard that we don't want to lose them. Is that a decent analysis of what you're saying?
So when we identify something in our lives that we're chasing after, that we're willing to do just about anything to keep, and so we've cultivated that fear, how does that process happen? Is it just like developing any habit, or is there something else going on? Can you tell us more about that?
Andrew: I think there are a number of ways it happens. I think Genesis really gives us a beautiful picture of how this type of thing can come to bear. So you have Adam and Eve in the garden and God said, “Hey, in all creation, all these trees, you eat from them. And there's one in the center of the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that this one is not for you.” And Adam and Eve, at least in that moment, for all intents and purposes, from what we can tell, believed God and left that tree alone until one day a serpent came in and gave them a different way of looking at and thinking about the tree itself.
And there's something that we'll say on repeat throughout this whole podcast series— emotions are driven by narratives. And so a narrative will shape how we feel about different things. So Satan offers to Adam and Eve in this moment, “Hey, this tree is actually something that's desirable to make you wise. It’ll make you like God.”
And so as they start to recalibrate their understanding of what the tree is for, we also see their emotions change. So you see in Genesis 3:6, where all of a sudden the woman's reaching for the tree, and it says she's reaching for it because now she sees that it's desirable to make her wise—the narrative of her understanding [of] the tree has been reshaped through the counsel of the serpent, and now her emotions are following that.
And now the tree is not something to be afraid of; it’s actually something I have fear of missing out on. I'm afraid if I don't take from it, I'm actually missing out on all these good things that I could have. And so that's where we see emotions can change through even just a simple narrative shift.
I mean, it's not really told in Scripture when God told Adam and Eve, “Hey, this tree is not for you.” Whether or not they felt fear when they saw that tree at the healthy, righteous fear of, No, I feel this fear toward this thing, because I've been told it's not what I'm made for.
Andrew: But that's what fear is supposed to do. Fear is supposed to tell us, “Hey, this is a thing that's not good for you.” The same thing runs with the snake analogy. A snake is not for you to play with because it's dangerous. Now there are snakes to play with, and if you have snakes, great for you; I think snakes are terrifying.
But this is what fear is meant to do, as a protective sense. And God offered that [through] His counsel. And I would imagine there was some feeling for Adam and Eve associated with that reality that taught them not only do I have the Counselor right; I've got a healthy, righteous fear. This is the boundary line that's been set for me.
Satan came in and offered a whole different boundary line, and then used, essentially, the lust of having more. And this is what Shanda just described. So I wonderfully hear that lust and fear go, two sides of the same coin, and they go hand in hand. Now I lust for this thing and have a deep fear if I don't get it, I'll forever be missing out on it. That then led them to reach for the tree and landed us where we are today.
Lindsay: So what are some other narratives our culture might have around fear? It seems like fear is everywhere.
Brittany: So other ways that fear is cultivated—it comes into our life through the cultural stories around us. We're being essentially trained in being afraid, afraid of losing certain things. And so if I'm afraid of losing those things, I have to work to try to keep them. But the more I work to try to keep them, the greater that fear of losing them becomes until I get stuck in this cycle of always having to maintain this effort of responding out of fear in order to create a perceived sense of safety. Which is actually crippling me to what's genuinely safe.
Andrew: I think the cultural piece, like, our culture gets it. Fear is unbelievably powerful in terms of motivating people and getting them to do stuff. Like, our whole market, consumerism, every commercial, just pay attention to every commercial you've ever seen. It’s going to bank on fear and lust in one of two directions, either fear of you don't have the thing that you need to be okay. Or lust of, if you just had this, everything would be better, like it would be glorious. And so the news cycle that we live in is constantly fomenting and shaping a culture of fear. Statistically speaking, we're one of the safest cultures that has ever existed in terms of violence, life expectancy, and everything else.
And yet anxiety, depression, fear—all those things are skyrocketing right now. And that's the power of narrative, that's the power of the story that we believe about what we see. If we're being told constantly, through multiple avenues, that everything is dangerous, that everything is falling apart, that you always don't have enough, then the natural state of humankind is deep fear that then motivates us to try and control, to protect, motivates us to try and do things to keep ourselves safe. That oftentimes, as Brittany just said, proves ineffective. We can't keep ourselves safe. We can't do enough. So then we have to try and do more. If it rests on us to get ourselves safe, then we find ourselves on this hamster wheel, continuing to try and get safe. And it just—it doesn't work.
Now, for consumerism that's ideal. It’s a never-ending stream of, “Oh, you just need the next thing to be okay.” And the next thing and the next thing. And we'll buy into it, because for a moment it feels better. For a second, when we get the thing, it feels a little bit better. But then fear kicks back in, because we haven't resolved it in any real sense. And so the power of narratives, the power of what we're putting into our brains, I think it's so important for us to attend to that.
Brittany: Which all kind of comes through on how we interpret our experience. We all know what it's like to be afraid; the cultural narrative gives us a place of how to respond to that fear. So our experiences and how we interpret them creates that pathway for us to really follow, a pattern of living in fear.
Shanda: It's just a very human experience. It is embedded in our DNA. It's just an element that we're all going to face on any given day. Because, when we're honest, we have to acknowledge the world isn't safe. We have a lot of safety, I think, in our cultural experience, but there are many things out of our control.
So we have good reason to fear, but we have better reason to trust the Lord in the midst of that. And I think we see in Joshua 1:9 this idea of “be strong and courageous, don't be afraid. Don't be dismayed, for God is with you.” And so we're trying to figure out how to be honest about the things that do actually create and pose a threat.
But like Brittany said so beautifully, where do we take refuge? Are we going to run to our humanistic efforts and what [our] culture is offering as sanctuary and a place to essentially hide and find cover and shelter? Or are we going to take shelter in the Lord?
And I love this passage in Joshua, ‘cause it's looking at fear and its healthiest form as godly courage, because we have to learn how to face our fears. We have to learn how to move through those bodily cues that are telling us this isn't safe. But there are some experiences in life where we've got to face that and grow through that and find a God and His help and hopefully our identity that's rooted in Christ to strengthen us so that we can be shaped and mature through navigating those scary experiences. But finding that God is with us in that. And we can face those [fears]. And they're not as scary as maybe we had perceived them to be.
And I love, in Luke 12, which we'll probably talk about more in verse 22, He says, “Don’t be anxious.” But in verse 32, He says, “Fear not, little flock.” It's God's love that is moving toward us in these scary moments, where we have to acknowledge our discomfort, and we acknowledge the unpredictability and uncertainty. But when we assess with wisdom and say, “Okay, there is good reason to trust God here.” And move through the fear into courage and find that there's actually something for me through this process.
Because in the cultural piece, where we're trying to remove everything scary, we're trying to remove anything that would cause discomfort. We would say that is truly more debilitating and ultimately harmful for our soul. That doesn't get [us] to grow and find the strength in the midst of those difficult realities.
Andrew: I think the cultural piece you're hitting on there, Shanda, is so important. Because the culture right now, we're trying to create a reality in which fear doesn't exist. Which again, I want to give credit where credit is due. I believe that's the echo of Eden within the human soul. The echo of Eden that says, “This is not the way things are supposed to be.” It's evidence of the reality of the fall and its consequences that, within our soul is still this deep longing, that fear should not be a normative experience in the human life. And so I want to honor that, while also acknowledging that the pursuit of a world or a society that is absent of fear is unrealistic, post-fall. It’s an unattainable goal until Christ returns, which means for the Christian, this is where fear is good.
The negative feeling of fear has its place and has its purpose in the Christian life, has its right [and] appropriate experience in the context of living in a world that is fallen. That there are actual dangers, there are actual things that will go wrong, and that are threatening and dangerous to the human being.
And yet in the Christian life, we're also invited to calibrate that fear appropriately, that the proper place again, what Adam and Eve should have done from the beginning, is fear God enough to say “no” to the serpent. Fear God enough, according to understanding that His counsel was right, to be able to just say no to alternative narratives of the boundary lines that are good for us.
And so cultivating a good godly fear. And so what Shanda just shared there—that's the antidote, like the progressive movement forward, an antidote is [that] we cultivate a right and healthy fear of God and the way that we do life.
Lindsay: So what does it really practically look like to cultivate a fear of God? What does that mean to have that godly courage and to rightly honor the Lord for who He is, but also live in the broken world we live in?
Brittany: I think one of the things that we're all saying is, so, your fear is telling you how to evaluate your situation and trying to tell you what's true here and what you need to then do. And so we want to practically acknowledge, Hey, I am fearful. That's good to acknowledge, to be, like, there's reason for me to be afraid. And then we want to evaluate what it is that we're afraid of, and how can we respond to that fear. So if I'm afraid of losing this thing, it might be a good thing that I'm afraid of losing.
And so we want to look at, then, the means by which we take refuge. Are we going to take refuge in our own efforts and our own ability to control our environment or control others and their responses to us? Or I’m going to take refuge in, “Hey, Lord, what You have said is true.” Over and over again throughout Scripture God tells us, “Hey, fear not; I'm with you.” Shanda referenced [a] passage earlier—”Fear not, I'm with you; My desire is to give you the kingdom.” So God's desire for us is good, that we would live in a flourishing way within the boundary lines He [has] set for us here on earth.
And so by beginning to evaluate what is my fear telling me and how do I typically respond? How would I respond if what the Lord says is true? And cultivating that understanding and learning how to respond in a different way that places trust in God, fearing the one who can destroy the soul and not the body and who is actually for me in this situation.
Andrew: I think it's helpful to calibrate around God's character. ‘Cause we've heard it said a few times, like whenever somebody interacts with God or an angel throughout the majority of Scripture, the first phrase that God or the angels say is, “Do not be afraid.” Which I think if we hear that one way; we hear it as a critique, we hear it as an, “Oh, we're doing something wrong.”
I think really, what's happening there is God recognizes for sure and knows that person feels fear, because they're coming face-to-face with the cataclysmic difference between them and this messenger of God. And God is saying, “hey, child, you don't have to be afraid in this moment. You don't have to let that fear drive you to run away to hide.”
But rather He’s honoring and, in a sense, even connecting with that emotional reality that's present. If we look at God that way, that He cares about our fear. He acknowledges it, and He’s going to help us calibrate it appropriately. Then I think it's less we hear the condemning voice of God saying, “Shame on you for being afraid,” and more of a, “Hey, sweet child, I know you're afraid. You don't have to be.” And so rehearsing the character of God in our mind. Rehearsing the ways that [He} interacts with people throughout the Scripture—His patience with Moses and all of his fear—I think we can see God's character is so consistently kind, patient, gentle toward His children.
And then that allows us to then cultivate really what we'd hoped, [what] we would have hoped Adam and Eve could have responded to the serpent is, “No, we fear breaking God's command.” Because what follows is really, really bad. It’s not, we get good. We get bad.
And so some of the fears, no, this boundary line is actually a healthy safety for me. It's a good thing. This fear that tells me, “Don't cross this threshold. Don't step past this line.” It’s actually because I know God's character is good. And even though from my own understanding, I might look beyond that line and think, Wow, the grass is way greener over there, I'm going to lean back into, But God's character is better than mine, more kind than mine, more loving than mine, more wise than mine. Can I trust Him to let my feet remain on this side of that boundary line and believe in faith that where He has me now is the better place? I start to cultivate then, a, no, crossing that boundary line, the grass looks greener—there's consequences that follow that I can't see yet. And that's the fear that I think can be really helpful for us, in the context of understanding God's character.
Shanda: That's what the Word says so beautifully. The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. Where we learn that right orientation to the holiness of God and how to move toward Him with confidence, and let those healthy realities of fear play out for our good.
And I think going back to where this healthy fear that we learned from, “Hey, don't touch a hot stove,” because, Oh, I did that once, and it got burned. But sometimes, fear gets hooked into an experience that we've had where somebody has harmed us and, like, “Don't touch a hot stove,” we might associate [with], “Okay, don't trust people. Don't trust a particular type of person.” And it could hinder us from being able to move forward.
And I think Andrew is talking about learning to now have that healthy understanding of fear when we've been harmed in our history, and there's a deep pain. That we can take what we call it, just vigilance, which I think is a healthy form of fear. And it can become catastrophic fear. This is hypervigilance to where we try to protect ourselves in a way that ends up sabotaging or keeping us from some healthy opportunities to grow and learn. It can just get really confusing when there's hurt attached, and then that fear radar, and we're scanning our environment at all times to predict and protect, because we have good reason to be afraid—because we've been hurt. But then we have to learn how to manage in this broken world where we aren't protected from all of life's harms. How then do we learn to retrieve that healthy fear when we've been hurt? So that's another element that I think we're working with when we talk about fear.
Andrew: I think it would be helpful to recognize the brain is pretty indiscriminate, in terms of fear. And especially when it's been on the level of trauma and abuse and stuff like that. If the brain senses anything that feels similar to that relationship, similar to the setting in which the trauma or abuse occurred, it's going to cue up fear quickly.
And I think that, maybe make this more accessible for those who maybe have not experienced those things, you think about one of those, skyscraper towers, the—what is it in Seattle? Space Needle, that thing, whatever that thing is. And some of these places, they have like a glass floor up top that you can walk out on, and it feels like you're suspended in midair.
No matter how much you tell your brain, Everything is fine, if you're keeping your eyes downward and seeing how far it is down to the ground, your brain is going to keep pumping that feeling of fear of, No, this isn't right. There's something off here, even though you cognitively know, No, this is okay. They built this so it wouldn't fall. Because they know if they did build it so it would fall, they’d get sued, and it'd be really bad for them. And so I'm actually safe right now. But that's some of the dynamic as we look to regain healthy fear, to be able to calibrate, Okay, this situation feels like the other one that was really bad. But teaching my brain to recognize and experience, But this isn't the same. The difficulty with that is [that] the only place to do that is in the moment. And that's the hardest part.
‘Cause fear tells us [to] run. Get out. It's not worth it to stay. But if we're going to learn to not feel those ways and moments that are similar to the bad experiences we've had, there's a certain exposure and endurance we have to have to let our brain catch up with, Okay, it is safe. The same thing in the tower. You spend enough time walking around on that glass floor, it [the brain] will slow down. The emotions will abate. Although there may still be just a gentle hum. At least that's the way my brain works. A gentle hum of, I'm still not sure.
But it's not as strong as it was at the beginning. When you first step out, in your brain, like, Ah, no, that's a horrible idea. And so I think that's [in] many ways the difficult work that we have to do, is the endurance. When the emotions are still strong, to help our brains slow down enough and go, Okay, it's not the same.
Brittany: So when we think about doing this with people, it's keeping in mind that it takes some time. If that fear makes you tunnel vision, in the moment, it takes some time to be able to hold the fear in your body and also see that things might not be the same as they have been. So to allow your body to get used to that, Hey, the floor is not actually not there. It's there.
I can stand, and I can walk around. And so it takes time to develop that aspect of being able to see both and feel the fear and move in a different direction. And so, learning that discernment is a process. And so when we walk with others through that, we want to be patient with that process of understanding, that there may still be that initial fear response and kind of working with that over time as it slowly gets easier each time. But it does take a little bit of risk-taking in that healthy risk to rewrite that narrative in our brain that not all of these things are the same. Or not every situation is a threat. So going back to that original definition of fear is a response to a perceived threat. And we want to help recalibrate what level of threat am I at.
Lindsay: So it sounds like empathy and not assuming things is really important in both understanding fear in our lives and in caring for our community.
I want to ask about a very specific example, parents, who may struggle between the difference of that healthy vigilance that you mentioned, Shanda, and then going into hypervigilance because the world is scary and children need a level of care. And that's part of being a responsible parent. How can you be wise and vigilant in parenting your children, but not come out in a defensive posture everywhere you go?
Andrew: That's a great question. That probably requires a whole 10-episode series of its own at some point. I think from a biblical perspective, there are a few things we've got to hold in tension. One of the harder truths of Scripture, and it's one I've been meditating on quite a bit and had to offer to many of my clients more recently, is we don't grow in resilience. We don't grow in endurance. We don't grow in character. We don't grow in hope apart from difficulty, apart from navigating hard situations. And so I think as a parent, one of the difficult things is [that] we have this tendency to want to protect our kids from every hard thing.
I think that's one of the most difficult things for us to wrestle through on a daily basis. It’s the knowledge that protecting our kids from every difficulty, every pain, and every hardship will not prepare them well for living in this world. They're going to have to deal with fears. They gonna have to deal with pains in this life, because that's how we all grow. That's, you know, Romans 5, James 1 that talks about rejoicing in our suffering because it produces character. It prepares us for being complete, equipped for every good work.
And so calibrating around that is just tremendously difficult as a parent. I think apart from knowing God is who God is—that He sovereignly reigns, that He’s sovereignly working out our salvation and our kids' salvation as well—that we would not have any remote confidence. If God's not in control, I feel like the most logical answer is, yeah, I'm just gonna create the biggest bubble ever and keep my kids in it forever. And they would never have a phone, and they wouldn't have access to the internet. We would just, you know, stay in our little bubble. That's not going to be a healthy life. And that's not going to help our kids in terms of growing in resilience or becoming the type of kids that can move into adulthood and interact with a broken world.
So we got to calibrate around what are the things in the world that our kids are not prepared for? So there's age appropriateness and all of this. So how do we calibrate around what shows are appropriate? What type of engagement with friends? Are we willing to take a little bit of risk and say, “Hey, what age do we allow them to sleep over or do we never allow our kids to sleep over?” I think all [of] those are great questions for us to think [of] in terms of age development. But the sole goal of avoiding fear will lead us to a place of not helping our kids develop in the way they're going to need to, and not preparing them for the reality of the suffering they're going to face in this life.
We need to be compassionate when hurts come, and we need to help our kids understand that hurting and pain is part of the process of growth. We can be sad about it, and God weeps with us as we weep. And yet He’s also doing a work at the same moment. And we want to help our kids hold onto those two tensions.
And so there [are] more practicals that could be gotten into. But for the sake of what we're talking about here, I don't know that we could go that deep on it. Just mostly want to acknowledge it's a hard tension, and maybe this last practical for the parent out there—just recognize your own tendencies. I think one of the most helpful things you can do is be really well attuned to which side of the ditch do you fall into here. Are you in the over-protective, hyper-protective? Oh my goodness. My kid experiences one pain. I've got to light everything on fire and protect them from all the people. Are you on the other side? You're like, “Man, they'll be fine. Rub some dirt on it. It doesn't matter. Get over it. Move on.” Those two ditches are not the goal.
We want to be held in this place of acknowledging the pain. And then also protecting our kids appropriately from the things that they need to be protected from, or that would just be age appropriate to protect them from.
Shanda: And I would say, in the goal of all of our maturing and all of our growth and learning it, is to pursue wisdom, which we hook back into the healthy fear of the Lord. So in these different types of situations, there's a lot of discernment. There's a lot of required dedication to considering the circumstances, and then how to proceed, whether you're a parent or it's you in a situation, trying to figure out what is healthy fear versus unhealthy fear or what is wise and good in this moment. And that we would continue to encourage one another as long as it is today. And, that we would, 1 Thessalonians 5:14 to encourage those that are fainthearted, encourage those that need a little help facing those fears. Whether it be a parent or whether it be a peer and a friend and another family member that we're walking alongside, that there is patient endurance and acknowledging that it's challenging, it's difficult. It's an intentional effort.
I don't know that we're accidentally going to move toward doing that courageous work. Like we see in Joshua of trusting the Lord because all of this fear is—it's hooked to trust. Where are we going to bank our hopes when fear arises and our hearts get exposed, and it invites us into the very intimate faith? Pouring our hearts out to the Lord, especially as a parent with a child.
But in every circumstance where we're making a decision of whose kingdom am I going to serve? And where am I going to anchor my hope in this moment and trust in something, the goodness of God, outside of myself, because I have to acknowledge the limitations of my control and the unpredictability and the uncertainty that we all live in.
Andrew: So another element with parents to kids, I just want [to] offer as practical. So if we think about when a kiddo, you know, adolescent, pick your age here, is experiencing fear. Perhaps the other side of the coin here, our lead foot with them should be to acknowledge that fear, should be to empathize with that fear. If we try and reason them out of that fear in that moment, we will get nowhere. And I think if we're honest as adults, we're kind of the same. When we feel super afraid and somebody tries to reason with us and they offer us the logic, our feelings don't care about their facts.
Our feeling of fear will dominate the facts and find different facts that will facilitate why we feel the way we do. And so to create access for the narrative to be changed for kids and for adults, the feeling needs to be acknowledged first, the feeling needs to be entered into. So when a kiddo comes to you and is deeply afraid, the lead foot of, “I can tell you feel really scared about this. I can tell by what your body's doing. It's tensing up. Like, you feel afraid of what might come next.” That's the lead foot, the connecting, “Hey, I'm with you in this emotion. I can see it. It's real.” That then can create the space for, “Hey, maybe we can explore why we don't have to be overwhelmed in this fear right now.”
And that's where—what Shanda's sharing. Bringing God back into the picture here. As we bring God into the situation, thinking about somebody who is loving and in control, who is present, who is providing for us that can help. Yet, if we're honest, the difficult tension we still have to hold is this loving, present God still allows painful things to happen. I think that's the difficult work of parenting a kiddo and counseling in general is, “How do we help our people hold that tension line?” God is good. All loving, present, doing good things. He's doing a work in us right now, and yet He’s still allowing it to hurt. And yet you're telling me I'm supposed to trust Him and lean into Him? And I think that's the main tension point. As we grow kids, as they deal with their fear, help them work through their fear and help them lean into a God who loves them.
Lindsay: Thank you so much for speaking to parenting specifically. I think there was a lot of hope and a lot of freedom in that, [in] what you shared, even in acknowledging that feelings are real and working through how to not feel overwhelmed in those moments.
I want to zoom out now to community in general. How can we apply that same framework, which seems so foundational, and we see throughout Scripture, in practical ways to help people in our lives and our community groups and our families who really suffer from intense fear or would say that they're a fearful person? How can we walk alongside someone in patience and humility and helping them navigate that fear?
Brittany: I think one of the things that Andrew just shared is acknowledging the fear, and then laboring to understand it, understanding what it is that they're afraid of. And trying to get in the fear with them to see what they see when they're afraid. And anchoring ourselves in the truth of the Lord and what He says about whatever situation, experience that they are fearful of.
And allowing a little bit of a different perspective of, “Hey, it's not just me that is with you; but also, the Lord, your loving Father is with you in this fear,” because I think we can be a little bit reductionistic. Well, we don't need to be afraid. It's fine. And so wanting to acknowledge that a lot of what we said already, it's like the fear probably makes sense to them. It makes sense in their world. It makes sense to their experience, and you understand how did the spirit come to be, what are some ways in which maybe their experience has really legitimized that fear for them?
Shanda: Yeah. Like Brittany said, I think just knowing somebody's story and slowing down and bearing with them to hear the history of how they got there. It’s recognizing all the things that we're experiencing come from somewhere, there is a reason, rather than putting a platitude of the Bible is good and right and true. But it's all of us learning how to engage that, based on whatever hesitation or resistance or barrier that may be there from past wounding or hurt. And we get to incarnate the love of God in that. And I think for those who are moving toward people who are gripped by fear, it is remembering the Romans 8 piece. That we are going to face difficulty in this world, that we get to take heart because Jesus has overcome the world.
We get to have confidence that God's redemptive work is active, and we don't have to rush this process of healing. We can sit in the ashes with somebody, remind them of the height and the depth and the goodness of God that they will not be separated from, as they learn to experientially find sanctuary and refuge and safety with God coming out of a place that they were harmed or have really good reason to fear. And so I think just truly being willing to allow whatever discomfort bubbles up for us to not dictate how we pursue loving people.
And again, we say those emotions are our indicators when we're walking alongside somebody that's gripped with fear. But thankfully, in the economy of grace, that experience and those emotions—they aren't dictators of what's ultimately true. We've all got to figure that out for ourselves, and walk by faith, and move from one degree of glory to the next, and to hoping in God and believing His glory and power as sufficient for us in every experience. So just patiently enduring with people is what you're going to hear us say over and over and over again.
And Ephesians 3:18, I think, goes along with that, that we just remember that the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. Scripture is beautiful. And we want to meditate on it. And It does affect us. But we don't just get to download the data and then out comes the confidence of faith. It is a very personal and intimate journey with Jesus and learning His goodness and believing that He is more trustworthy than the people who have harmed us in the past.
Andrew: For community, I think one of the key components is the same thing you've said for parents to kids. If the fear is strong enough, until that fear finds a safe connection point. And I can see the fear, I'm with you in it, I recognize it's real; there's oftentimes not going to be enough mental margin or bandwidth to think about what's actually going on. In other words, there's going to be cases in which you've got somebody who's so deeply fearful, they feel it so much in their body. They're tunnel-visioned on the fear. They can't really think outside the box. And this is why if you try and logic a person in that moment, say, “Well, here's why you don't have to be afraid,” it finds no purchase anywhere in their thinking, because the emotion is so strong.
And so the lead foot of compassion, lead foot of weep with those who weep, again, tends to create a space to maybe be able to explore it. Like some people, again, they're so fearful that all they feel is the emotion. And they might not really understand the why. They might not be able to tell you at all what they're afraid of because they're so locked in fight or flight mode that their brain is screaming, Get out, get out, get out, get out! So until that connection point happens, that can lower that emotional volume.
And then there's space for abstract thinking. ‘Cause that's one of the things that shuts off when we go into fear mode is...the extra abstract thinking goes away, and it's just straight run, fight, hide type of thing there.
As we lower that down, we have more space to then explore with them, to be with them in it, and trying to work through, “Hey, what, what might be driving this? What's the core? What is the perceived threat?” And that's the narrative we'll explore over time with them. As we might think the perceived threat is one thing, and as we keep exploring it, we discover notes much deeper seated than that. The perceived threat is not just that you'd have a bad conversation with this person. The deep threat is, this person would reject you as a human being, which taps back into shame. Like your shame is telling you you're unworthy.
It's coming out through fear in this relational conflict. And now this relational conflict feels like the whole world to you, and you're so deeply afraid of saying just the wrong word in that conversation, because what's actually happening at a soul internal level is you feel your identity is threatened, that your worst fear about who you are is going to be confirmed.
If we can explore that and make sense of why the emotions are so strong. But we have to start with acknowledging those emotions are real. And so, in other words, I'd say from a practical standpoint, if you're dealing with somebody who's got heightened levels of fear, there's a story there. There's a story worth learning and understanding.
And the crazy part is, the individual might not know the story. Like, while they're locked in the fear, they might have no connecting dots. We get the joy of helping them try and connect those dots in their story of how their implicit memory, the things that have happened the day they have forgotten, it's still affecting and influencing their reality.
So a lot of patience, all that's been said. Like, the apostle Paul beats that drum throughout all the epistles of, “Be patient with everybody.” This is why. It's a slow process. Getting rid of fear, at least getting rid of fear that's not healthy—it's a slow process. Done well in community, people will be patient, kind—all the fruits of the Spirit.
Brittany: From a body perspective, it's really interesting. ‘Cause even if you don't know what to say to the fearful person who does not know why they're afraid, because they're just so locked in, and all the abstract thinking is gone. And they're not really sure why.
We help regulate each other. So you being a regulated person in that presence with them actually helps pull them out of it. Over time it helps them learn how to calm back down and how to settle. And so this is true for kids. It's also true for adults. We help each other have steadier nervous systems by being around each other. So if you don't know what to say, at least know that you being a calm presence is helpful for this other person.
Lindsay: That's actually really encouraging, because there are so many moments we don't know what to say. Especially if that's going on.
Thank you all so much for sharing that wisdom. We're three episodes in, and I hear some similarities between what you're saying in regard to emotions in general, shame, and fear. Doing this well, helping one another, and learning and growing ourselves requires some slowing down. Maybe a lot of slowing down.
It requires getting to know other people and developing deep relationships, knowing their story, being patient, leaning into what they're saying. It requires knowing and being in God's Word, both so we can receive truth, but also so we can receive hope and encouragement in those moments. And we don't have to do this alone. We should cultivate community. We should find people we trust that will be patient with us, that we want to walk alongside.
Next week we'll talk about pride, what it is, what it does to us, how we can look to God in the midst of pride, and balance that tension that we keep talking about with every emotion.
Thank you so much for listening this week. We encourage you to go to our episode webpage that you'll find in the show notes, or you can go directly to austinstone.org. And we've provided a group guide that has Scripture, reflection questions, discussion questions, and a copy of our liturgy that you'll hear at the end of this episode. All of that is so you can continue to process what you've learned, both individually and with your community.
Every week, we provide a liturgy as a worship response to what you've learned. And so, we invite you to just sit and be still and let your heart turn toward God as these words wash over you. And we'll see you next time.
Alex: A Liturgy for Fear
O Lord, my God and my Savior,
You have hand-crafted me.
I know I am precious in Your eyes,
Yet fear darkens the light of Your affection.
My life crumbles,
Like my perception of Your goodness to me.
I fear being forsaken.
My nightmares have come to life,
And I am frozen by the icy breath of imminent death.
O Lord, remind me of Your promises.
Your steadfast love is everlasting for those who fear You, So let me fear You and You alone.
You are my refuge and my fortress,
And I will trust You in this, my trial.