Read an Excerpt
Chapter 1
Why Am I So Afraid?
“Fear is not an unknown emotion to us.”
Neil Armstrong
Charlie Brown, “I have a new philosophy.
I'm only going to dread one day at a time.”
Charles Schulz
It was late at night and we both heard the noise. It sounded like someone walking above our bedroom. My wife Jan and I had been married only a few months and we lived in a lovely little place not far from the Bible college where we were both studying. This cottage, however, was somewhat isolated in the countryside and built in such a way as to have access to the attic from the outside. There had been a considerable number of burglaries in our area and there were constant news reports of a violent attacker at work. As we lay in bed reading, pitch dark outside, we heard a scrambling on the floorboards above us. Then a banging and scraping sound.
I prayed out loud feeling more than a little panicked. We waited and listened and then I barricaded the bedroom door as the noises grew louder. All the imaginations that had gathered listening to the news of crime in our area began to come together like dark thunderclouds before a storm unleashes its fury.
There was another loud bang and that was it. I phoned the police. I could have gone and investigated myself but I rationalised it was better not to leave my wife unprotected. This didn’t take much self–persuasion. Twenty minutes later the police and a police dog arrived.
They searched everywhere and concluded it was mice running under the floorboards on the ceiling directly above us. Imagine how I felt, mice, small, furry little animals but in my mind I thought thieves, rapists, murderers. Midgets had become giants, harmless little creatures had become ferocious beasts and what was nothing to worry about had grown to be all consuming terror. Afterwards my wife and I laughed. We shared it with others and guess what, they laughed as well.
Where Does Fear Come From?
The Painful Past
Behind the scenes of a major circus the elephant trainer was asked, “How is it you can stake down a huge ten ton elephant with the same size stake that you use for a small baby one weighing only a few hundred pounds?” “That’s easy,” said the trainer. “When they are babies we stake them down in just the same way as their parents. They try and pull away maybe 10,000 times before they realise that they can’t possibly escape. At that point their memory takes over and they remember for the rest of their lives that they can never escape the stake even though as grown elephants they could easily break free.”1
People can be like that, something said or done in the painful past and “zap” a stake of fear and control is driven into our minds. Something happens at school and a stake is driven in. We grow up gaining our degrees and promotions but there are areas of our life still held in bondage to a stake driven into us from our past.
Fear can become a self–fulfilling torment. Even such a godly man as Job, after hearing what had happened to his children, cried out, “What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me,” Job3;25.
Maybe there was something in his past that caused him to think like this, or perhaps it was the heartache of a worried parent for the welfare of his children. We don’t really know, but what we do know is that many fears have their roots in mindsets and belief systems that are a product of life’s hurts and insecurities.
When Life magazine carried a feature on Elvis Presley they titled it, “Down at the end of Lone Street.” It documented how the man people thought had everything spent the latter years of his short life of just 42 years in a nightmare world of depression, despair and drugs.
He was called “The King,” a title he carried with handsome good looks and a seemingly happy go lucky charm and talent but behind the image reality was shockingly different. The night he died he had taken several packets of sleeping pills and prescriptions drugs to try and help him get some peace and rest. He took more and more until they finally took effect and the following morning he was found dead on the bathroom floor having almost bitten his tongue in half.2
Many who knew him well said that Elvis lived in fear all his life, fear of authority, fear of people better educated that himself, but mostly fear of ending up back in the poverty where he started. These fears were reckoned to be rooted in his early childhood and relationship with his mother, Gladys, who had lost one baby and for a while Elvis was all she had as her husband Vernon battled with drink.
By all accounts Gladys Presley overwhelmed her son with worry and smothered him with affection as they trudged with their few belongings from rented home to rented home. It was around this time, when Elvis was five or six, that the nightmares that would terrify him all his life began.3
Just a few weeks before his death, he was asked by a reporter, “When you first got started in your musical career, you said you wanted three things, in life, to be rich, to be famous, and to be happy. Are you happy, Elvis? He replied, “No, I'm as lonely as hell.”4
A Fallen World
Below is a policeman’s response to a problem set in a training exam which read:
“You are on the beat and you see two dogs fighting. The dogs knock a baby out of its pram causing a car to swerve off the road, smashing into a grocer’s shop. A pedestrian is seriously injured, but during the confusion a woman’s bag is snatched, a crowd of onlookers chase the thief and in the huge build up of traffic, the ambulance is blocked from the victim of the crash. State in order of priority your course of action.”
His reply:
“I would take off my uniform and mingle with the crowd.”
The Bible first mentions fear in the third chapter of Genesis when Adam and Eve hide from God having broken the only requirement He made of them, not to eat the forbidden fruit. Their eyes were opened to their own nakedness and a whole new dimension of emotional experiences descended upon them. They had released sin like a doomsday virus with all its deadly consequences into this world. It was not what they had hoped for. Instead of becoming more, as promised by the serpent, they had devalued themselves and become less and the power of fear was unleashed into a now fallen world.
The reason the Bible says so many times “Fear not” and “Don’t be afraid” is because there are so many things to fear. There is a phobia for almost every aspect of life.
There is claustrophobia (fear of closed places) and acrophobia (fear of high places). Less well known are astraphobia (fear of thunderstorms), mysophobia (fear of dirt), erythrophobia (fear of blushing), hydrophobia (the fear of water). Some hotels don’t have a thirteenth floor or a room 13 because some are afraid of the number 13, this too has a name, triskaidekaphobia. Peladophobia is the fear of baldness and bald people, porphyrophobia is the fear of the colour purple, chaetophobia the fear of hairy people. Levophobia is the fear of objects on the left side of the body, while dextrophobia, the fear of objects on the right side of the body. Calyprophobia is the fear of obscure meanings. Thalassophobia is the fear of being seated, stabisbasiphobia the fear of standing and walking. Odontophobia the fear of teeth. Graphophobia the fear of writing in public. Phobophobia is the fear of one's own fears and pantophobia is the fear of everything.
One of the newest phobias today has been labelled cyberphobia (fear of computers). According to a team of business professors at George Mason University in America, a large number of people are admitting to having a serious fear of computers. Just being in the same room with one causes some to suffer from feelings of panic, irregular heartbeat, breathing difficulties, dizziness and trembling. One therapist says that these individuals have more than the normal fear of failure while learning to work with computers. They become so anxious that they are afraid they're going to pass out, go crazy, or lose control.
Julius Caesar may have conquered much of the known world but never overcame his terror of thunder. Peter the Great of Russia cried like a child when he had to cross bridges. Dr Samuel Johnson, the celebrated British writer, wouldn't enter a room with his left foot first, if he did, he backed up and re–entered using his right one.
The great French scientist Louis Pasteur is reported to have had such an irrational fear of dirt and infection he refused to shake hands.5 American President Benjamin Harrison and his wife were so intimidated by the new fangled electricity installed in the White House they didn't dare touch the switches. If there were no servants around to turn off the lights when the Harrisons went to bed, they slept with them on.6 Hans Christian Anderson, the famous storywriter, had a phobia of being buried alive. As a result, he always carried a note in his pocket telling anyone who might find him unconscious not to assume he was dead. He often left another note on his bedside table stating, “I only seem dead.”
Our planet is filled with fear and insecurity. Researchers at John Hopkins University in America reported that 30 years ago, the greatest fears of school children were:
1) Animals
2) Being in a dark room
3) High places
4) Strangers
5) Loud noises
Today, children are afraid of the following:
1) Divorce
2) Nuclear war
3) Cancer
4) Pollution
5) Being mugged 7
And if statistics compiled by the American Kennel Club are any indication, fear is becoming more pervasive all the time. According to their records in 1975, cuddly poodles were the most popular purebred dog in America, with 139,750 registered. There were only 952 registered Rottweilers, a fierce breed often used as a guard dog. By 1994, the poodle population had been cut in half to 61,775, while Rottweilers had increased 100 times to 102,596. As one wit observed, “I guess we could say that America is not only going to the dogs – but mean dogs at that!”
Even those societies that have most of the world’s wealth and resources are as insecure as those with virtually nothing. It seems that the more you have the more you fear losing it. Listen to the fears of one of America’s most famous comediennes, Joan Rivers, who is afraid of losing her money and speaks of her great fear of winding up in a nursing home. She says, “I wake up at night and say, ‘What if I'm not funny in the morning? It's gone. It's over. Goodbye to the house, goodbye to Melissa's horses and the dogs.’ I always think it is just going to go away. Success is very fickle, and you must never think it is going to last forever, because it will not.”8
Many other comics hide their fears and insecurities behind the wall of their comedy. Author Leo Rosten speaks of Groucho Marx’s emotional isolation, “I never heard him laugh out loud even at jokes or comedians he enjoyed. His natural expression was edged with sadness, but in public he donned the mask of a sardonic owl. He hid his emotions. Even his wives and children were not his confidants. He was, in truth, a melancholy man, often depressed, as many comedians are.” 9
Two of Britain’s most famous comics were men with deep fears and insecurities. Tony Hancock committed suicide in Australia. His last words were, “True happiness is impossible to find.”10 Eric Morcambe became a household name but during the time of his greatest fame his son Gary in his book Behind the Sunshine tells of a man who was driven by his insecurities and the fears that if he stopped being funny for just a moment he would never be able to start up again.11
A Spirit from Hell
Many fears are not only a state of emotional anguish but are the result of demonic activity. These powers seek to destroy our peace and torment our minds. They come to intimidate and terrorize.
I will never forget the time I was speaking at a university gathering of overseas Christian students. I told them the story of David and Goliath and how Goliath, like all bullies, had a big mouth. I shared how David refused to be intimidated like the rest of the Israelite army and took five stones from the brook for his sling. There were other giants among the Philistine warriors, including Goliath’s brothers, 1 Chronicles 20:5,6. Whether David knew this or not we don’t know but he was a young man ready for anything.
I went on to share with them what had happened to me some months before at a late night prayer meeting. God was clearly leading us to pray against the devil’s activities in our community. As I was leading this prayer time I felt the cold breath of hell come and breathe down my neck and say, “You may be here surrounded by your friends, but your wife and baby are at home all alone.” That stopped me in my tracks. I shared with the students the battle that took place as the devil sought to intimidate me. I said like David we need to confess God’s power and protection. In Jesus’ name the devil has to flee from us. God’s love and power to protect our loved ones is infinitely greater that the devil’s to attack them. Suddenly, one of the older students shouted out a very loud “Praise God.” It was more than a big amen, it sounded like a cry of freedom.
This person told me afterwards what had happened to her just a few days before. She had come to study in Scotland for just one year but to do so she had to leave her husband and seven children back home in Zimbabwe. As she was praying for her sister’s children to get saved the devil threatened her that if she kept praying for them, for everyone who became a Christian he would kill one of her own children. She said, “I know God will protect them, but I needed to hear what you said today because the fear within me was becoming so great.”
One of the worst attacks from a spirit of fear I have known personally came when my wife and I went to visit a member of our church who had been unwell. A few days previously at the end of the Sunday evening service this person had collapsed at the back of the hall. We knew she had been ill but the cause of her collapse was a spiritual attack and she went into a demonic trance. When we prayed in Jesus’ name for her to wake she immediately jumped up. Nothing else would rouse her. Trained nurses were present with us and everything they tried couldn’t bring her round.
At her home we gently began to talk and reassure her but as we did so she started to choke and turn blue and went into another demonic trance. This time voices from her began taunting us saying she was gone and was never coming back. I had never seen anything like this, I tried to keep calm but on the inside I was in a panic. Finally, after about 20 minutes she came out of the trance.
That night was our Good Friday service and I told her and her husband we would pray for her at the end of the evening. I wondered what was going to happen. I gathered three or four others to pray as I was frightened over what might occur. I was on a fast learning curve. Through my mind went the newspaper headlines, “Woman chokes to death during ministry,” pastor says, “I only wanted to help.”
I knew I could not pray for her feeling like this, so before we started I stepped outside the room and spoke to God, “Lord, I am scared, not of any demonic powers and what they threaten to do to me but of what might happen to this dear person. I know unless I overcome this fear I will not only be frightened to pray for her but for anyone like her in the future. Lord, I need your help.” God spoke to me, “The enemy has no power to take the life of my people, if he had, this lady would have been dead long before now.” I stood there and rebuked the spirit of fear that had come against me and went in and ministered to the woman. I took authority over the choking and it never happened again.
That night she had a tremendous deliverance.
Since that time I have prayed with many to be set free from demonic powers. With many there invariably comes a moment when the demons show their hate and venom towards the person ministering. They seek to curse and intimidate making all kinds of threats. Unless we are walking in the authority of Jesus, living a godly life and free from fear of such things we will not be able to minister effectively in dealing with the demonic. That’s why that night was so important for me to overcome my fear.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, you have seen everything that has happened in my life and know me better than I know myself. Where any fears and anxieties have become a part of me I ask that by the power of your Holy Spirit you bring healing and freedom. Where living in this fallen world has brought apprehension and insecurity I pray for your love to fill me with peace and joy. I declare right now in your name that I will not live in fear. I will not be afraid. I take authority and break the power of the enemy that seeks to prevent me from being free.
I speak over my life the words of the Psalmist, “I sought the Lord and He answered me and He delivered me from all my fears,” Psalm 34:4. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
