Fear: The Forbidden Emotion

Photo by Paul Garaizar

The prevailing emotion of the month of October is fear. Masks and costumes have hit the shelves. Streaming services are amping up their offerings of films and shows to cause people to jump out of their own skins, and recipes for foods that look like spiders and mummies fill the pages of magazines. The commercialization or nostalgia of fear makes people seek out experiences that they already know will make them jump or cause them to risk nightmares. Meanwhile, I've been pondering why exactly we find it so easy to pursue a fearful, adrenaline-laced experience without actually delving into the realities of our own fears. 

Fear seems to be one of those emotions that we like neatly packaged in something escapist and temporary that we can indulge in and hold up in its little box and then guard on the shelf until the next time we want a thrill. In actuality, I am finding that fear is more of a pervasive force that permeates silently through osmosis or like a stealthily settling fog. In my case, it seems to have a chameleon-type quality, tacking itself onto other emotions making it hard to discern it's even present. Most recently, I discovered that many times when I'm angry for seemingly inexplicable reasons it's because fear is at the helm. Yet, because I don't always give fear permission to exist, it's determined to drive the ship into a glacier just to get attention. 

Within many Christian circles, fear is not only a negative emotion, it's a forbidden emotion. I understand the grounds for this what with "Fear not" appearing in the Bible 114 times, but I do wish the angels saying it could have been a little more forthcoming in providing the step by step process as to how exactly ones does that. I think the assumption has been that you simply will yourself to stop fearing or that if you ignore fear enough, it will simply disappear. In some cases, perhaps that is true in the sense of resisting the oppression of the enemy and eventually finding that he has indeed flown the coop. However, I also feel like it's worth recognizing that the only reason that we're able to feel fear in the first place is because God created our bodies and minds with the capability to do so. Fear helps us to understand a warning to our well-being or can serve as an intuition that something isn't quite right. I think it's also worth noting that the people to whom God said or angels said not to fear didn't receive condemnation or a death sentence for feeling fear. Rather the admonition was more of heads up that they could hold captive the thoughts headed in that direction because, while circumstances were weird or adrenaline-inducing, they weren't actually threatening. I'd almost say "fear not" in many contexts was the equivalent of saying, "I come in peace." The angels were helping people make sense of their situations by encouraging them to file the experience under the labels of weird, phenomenal, wonderful, astounding, surprising, unexpected, or whatever else but not under the label of dangerous, harmful, menacing, or evil. 

The problem with denying the existence of fear in our lives is that, like many other negative emotions, it will still seep out in our behavior and attitudes just as water rushes to any path where it can overcome the resistance. Anger may come out in passive aggressive comments or attitudes. Shame can come out in self-sabotage. And, I am finding, at least for myself, that fear tends to come out in anger. This discovery came about by asking myself why I am angry, especially when that anger isn't directed at any particular cause or event but rather is just a general state of snarkiness. If I follow the thread of whys, eventually I get to some kind of injustice or a what if scenario. It may look like this: 
Why am I angry? I'm angry because my electricity is off again inexplicably and without warning on the day I set aside to write my paper. Why is that upsetting? Because I pay to have electricity, and when I need it most, I don't have it. That's unfair. (Fear hides behind injustice a lot for me...so if at some point I feel like something is unfair, that probably means there is a fear tucked in there somewhere.) Why does that unfairness feel threatening to you? Because if I can't do my paper today, I may not have time to do it later in the week which could jeopardize my grade in the class, and what if the electricity is off again later in the week? (Now we're getting somewhere.) Why are you afraid of jeopardizing your grade in the class? And this is when I've generally hit a gold mine of fear that's related to identity or lack of trust in God or fear of failure. 

The question becomes, then, what would happen if I would get myself into a habit of giving myself purposeful opportunities to voice my fears rather than forcing them to make themselves known in baffling ways? Those baffling ways can sometimes include that aforementioned snarkiness, racing thoughts that cause insomnia, random chest pains, paralysis in decision making, and just a general daze. I was recently inspired by a missionary friend to make naming fear more a practice rather than an afterthought or an intervention when my life feels like a merry-go-round I'm gripping with white knuckles. She mentioned taking time with her family to share their fears and how surprised she was by just how many fears are present on a regular basis. 

The thing about negative emotions is that they are most powerful in the darkness. Like a spy behind enemy lines, they wield the most control when we don't know what or where they are. They're most susceptible to being used by the enemy for greater oppression, depression, and crisis when we refuse to acknowledge them as part of God's creation within our person. Acknowledging fear doesn't mean that we dwell on it or that we let it control us. Sometimes, I think we as Christians can tend to fall into near-superstitious habits thinking that if we voice the reality of what negativity we're feeling that we're somehow partnering with the enemy or giving ammunition to be attacked. In reality, David in the Psalms and even Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane found their greatest strength by verbally releasing their fears and anguish to their Creator. Our conversations with the Lord are a sacred space. When we try to will ourselves out of negative emotions, we aren't being truthful to ourselves or to God. The emotions are still there whether we're looking at them or closing our eyes and sticking our fingers in our ears to drown them out. That's why the first step to healing in so many regards is confession. We can convince ourselves that God and others will respond in any rejecting way until we actually let it fly and see what happens. Telling God and others how we really feel is not the same as declaring fear over ourselves like a banner. We can let fear have a seat at our table while still keeping truth the guest of honor. We don't have to elevate fear as truth, but we won't see and honor fear's true role of warning to protect us until we bring it into the light of the Person who is Truth. 

The emotion of fear is not the enemy. The fact that we feel a sensation of fear does not mean that we are giving an opening for oppression from the enemy. Just as with any emotion, the key to fear is how we make sense of it and how much power we give it. The best Person to receive the help needed to know how to interpret fear is from God, who made our emotions and gave them meaning. 

These next couple weeks, as you perhaps watch a thriller or don a costume, consider doing something really scary with me--giving yourself permission to feel fear and to name it in shadow of the Almighty Protector and the Author of Truth.