A couple years ago my wife wrote a blog about her own fear of whales and since then most of her random hits on her blog come from a Google search for "Fear of Whales." This has been very interesting for me to watch....people who live nowhere near water being afraid of something they may never see! So, I thought I would write this post for two reasons-
1. To get more traffic from all those Google searches for "Fear of Whales." (Just kidding)
2. To talk about the irrational nature of most our fears. I know that we all deal with fears of some kind, but most of the fears I battle, and I have helped others deal with, are pretty much fear of nothing. Fears that could not possibly happen. Fears that are suffocating, but impossible in the life of the one in fear. Fear of whales is like that. It's a fear that has little chance of actually happening, but haunts the one in fear. "What if?...." is our first line of defense to tell another person that we have good reason to fear and in fact, every right to hold onto this particular fear.
Fears are, first and foremost, a declaration that your God isn't big enough for the issues of your life. If he really was able to handle these problems and you believed him able then your fears would evaporate with the presence of your faith in the God who is able. Today, in my reading, I came to a verse in Proverbs that I smile at each time I read it. The author says, "Don't be afraid of sudden fear..." It's that fear of fear that can handicap us and make the God we worship unable to help us. This story is lived out over and over again in the pages of the bible. Men and women who simply don't trust God for their problem, and so fear dominates their life.
If you're dealing with whale size fears it might be time to talk to God about them. They are only big because HE is not.
7 comments:
Really, my fears are of things that really can happen. That doesn't change the reality that it is out of my control and in the control of the sovereign God. Faith is when I can trust God even if my fears are reasonable, knowing that the worst that can happen is under the hand of God, and he will still be on the throne and I will be with him in the end.
Thanks, Mike!
Jenny
Amen, Jenny, Amen!
SO. You just had to put that picture of a whale beside your post and scare me like crazy. Thanks a lot man, I can feel the nightmares coming. I had to cover the darn thing with my hand to read this. AH.
at least u could touch the picture, i cant een bring myself to do that. Been terrified of whales since i was a child, no idea why
really if you want to help people with a phobia of whales you need to take the picture down. it makes me uncomfortable
seriously. lose the whale picture. i just almost peed my pants. way to scare cetaphobes even more.
Anonymous,
Really? Do you realize you had to do a search to find this old post? This is October 2009 and you are looking way back to April to find a photo to cause fear. Let me suggest Bob Newhart's advice, "Stop it!" This stuff wouldn't scare you if you didn't search it out....:)
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