It's Just An Illusion

"Danger is real. But fear is a choice." *After Earth*

This has to be one of my favorite movies of all time featuring Will Smith and his son Jaden Smith. It's literally about this young man's courageous quest to get him and his father back home after being the only survivors in a spacecraft crash. I believe this movie will remain my favorite because of all of the amazing messages I was able to catch spread out throughout the entire film. Some were low-key and others were more obvious including this short piece about fear. 

There are things that we are afraid of which we build habits around to avoid. Then there are things that we fear of which paralyzes and makes us immobile. But what if I told you fear was just an illusion? Look above these words and the film attached to this post, at the black and white image. What do you see? 

Two identical male profiles? A fancy chalice? A candle holder? A lamp stand? It all really depends on how you look at it. 

That, my friends, is exactly how FEAR works. It's just an illusion. 

Psalm 34:4

I sought the LORD, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears.

For quite a long time especially after accepting Jesus as my Lord and Savior, I would pride myself on not being able to locate anything to be afraid of. Matter of fact, since I was a little girl, I feared nothing. And if I caught myself feeling as if I were afraid, I would push myself ahead of others to kill that feeling. I was always the person in school even in college to volunteer to be the first person to present my projects and to ask questions that people were too afraid to ask. I moved by that attitude everywhere. I worked very hard to ensure that fear would not come out on top. 

Then I ran into my giant...

I didn't even know this thing was a fear until I'd just so happen to trip over it last year when I begin to formulate plans to execute in various areas of my life. I thought it was just a nagging hindrance. Yet, I decided to follow it to find it's place of origin, to  discover it was feeding procrastination in me and causing me to turn down things I really wanted to do. This place of origin surprisingly was a festering reoccurring nightmare from my 12 year old self to my most recent adult self. A nightmare involving just me, dying in a car crash. 

So December 2017 I came face to face with my giant, my fear of driving. 

Because I am a vivid dreamer, these reoccurring nightmares funds my fear of driving which is the reason why I am 31 years old without a car or even a driver's license. It's the reason why I've taken and passed the written test a few times but never took the driving portion. It's the reason why when I moved at the age of 22, to a cozy but congested neighborhood with limited parking, that I convinced myself I didn't need a car or license for that matter. This fear has hid behind my city girl persona for quite a while. 

One night, I lay in bed shuffling through these vivid dreams of my quick and terrible death in car crashes. Then it was brought to my attention that a nice amount of women in my family on my mother's side have never driven a car, some of them went to their graves depending on others to get them around. 

My fear is but a nasty root connected to a generational curse. What a doozy! 

You see, the first thing you have to do when it comes to fear is find out the motivations of your habits. Most habits are actually rooted in some form of fear. In my case, I didn't even know that was the case. If you have a habit of backing out of things or making slow moves, it could be because of fear. I say audit ALL of your habits! Leave no stone unturned. Then, you have to accept it for what it is. Denial has no place in the successful eradication of any type of fear. Remember again that it's just an illusion anyway. But you have to look at it first so that you can be able to see the other angles. The most intimidating angle will be the most pronounced angle. Keep looking at it though, after a while it won't be so intimidating anymore. 

 Needless to say, I am making a conscious effort this year to saturate myself in the word of God as it pertains to my personal fear because the word of God is a confidence and courage builder. As I do this, I am building up my spirit man to face this thing. Listen, God never gave us the spirit of fear! His word states this in 2 Timothy 1:7. Fear has been put in place by the enemy to limit the children of God and impede kingdom progression. Something as simple as having limited mobility, resulted in my canceling and turning down great opportunities. Today, I put myself on the chopping block again, because I am not satisfied until I own the head of this fear!

We are ambassadors of the kingdom, individually designed and destined to be more than conquerors and neither of us have any time to be tangled up in fear whether it stems from a musty generational curse or not. If you're reading this, you are now about to be introduced or reintroduced to the very fear that has been holding you hostage, keeping you bound to fruitless endeavors, massaging mediocrity, and feeding a myriad of habits that, if you're honest has gotten you nowhere! And you can either ignore it, allowing it to lodge rent free in your psyche, or you can take your faith, the slingshot and slay it with a stone, the word of God. Be advised this is going to require a high voltage of courage on your end. 

What say you, beloved? 

G.I.N.O 

God Is Number One