Are You Paralyzed by Fear?
February 21st, 2008 | Michael Q. Pink
There are many identifiers of true humility, but one which is often overlooked is prayer. When we don’t pray, we are saying in effect, “I can handle this myself.” When we do pray, we are acknowledging our lack of ability and/or lack of trust in that ability and asking for God’s influence, help, and aid in the situation. The more capable you are, the more you better learn to depend on God, or you will set yourself up for a fall.
One way to do that is to always be stretching beyond your comfort zone, beyond your known abilities and into that area where fear rears its ugly head. If you are not facing down fear, you are probably not attempting very much. If fear is paralyzing you right now, you are quite close to deliverance. You are entering the faith zone, where you must walk by faith and not by sight.
Get up a little earlier just to spend time with the Father. Read His word and then just get a pen and paper and listen. Write down the thoughts He gives you and obey. This is called listening prayer. So much of our prayer time is us telling God stuff He already knows and asking Him for things or favor, etc. But what He wants to give us more than anything is Himself, His presence, His love. He wants us to cognitively experience Him. Train yourself to be quiet and wait upon the Lord. How long should you wait? Until you experience His mercy (favor, grace) (Psalm 123:2)
In the end, you will find new strength, mount up with wings like an eagle and soar. When you run, you will not be weary and when you walk, you will not faint. (Isa 40:31)
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February 21st, 2008 at 7:38 am
Morning Michael,
What you’ve posted this morning has been the ongoing daily experience of my wife and I over the last, almost two years! We have seen the depths of dispair when having our life savings stolen by fraud. The key individuals are now in jail for 20 years each without opportunity for parole.
Having known the Lord all of our lives from childhood, being involved in the church both daily and weekly… we, without even realizing it, came to ‘expect’ constant peace and freedom from disaster. Occasionally we would look at each other and say… When will it be our turn?
Now in retirement we know! BUT, our thinking suggested we were as close to God as possible all of these years. WRONG— this situation was the catalyst to inspire a really deep new appreciation for TOTAL dependence on our Saviour. To come to grips with a ‘not so apparent pride’ that was hiding in the shadows! So, not only will we be spending eternity with Him some day in the future, but, we have learned, by waiting, to see him eliminate all fear from our lives! He accomplishes this daily, because fear is a never ending road block when we attempt the impossible!
Because we have forged forward– Gale in her Real Estate business and me in my relatively new copywriting business, we now see ‘fear’ (satan)attempting to marginalize our efforts every day. BUT… we now know that fear is simply a re-awaking of our CONSTANT need to be with God-first thing in the morning, in prayer and reading His word and multiple sources of encouraging words such as your Blog here at SAW. (I’m sure glad I SAW my need for Him)
Thank you Michael for the ongoing sffort you are making in service to God first, and then to the world you are affecting by the power of God Himself.
Blessings,
Bob Park
February 21st, 2008 at 8:26 am
Thanks Bob for your kind words of encouragement and for your powerful testimony. May God prosper you and Gale with wisdom, ingenuity, insight and favor. Blessings, Michael
February 21st, 2008 at 8:45 am
Michael,
It’s evident you are in “the zone”. Keep pressing in to God and bringing us these amazing words of instruction and encouragement.
Blessings,
Jill J.
February 21st, 2008 at 9:08 am
Always appreicate your comments and support Jill. Blessings, Michael
February 21st, 2008 at 9:16 am
Thank you ever so much for this valuable piece of nugget!
I’ve always wanted to pray like this, but, keep going back
to old ways of praying - i.e using other people’s prayer
points and confessions - not that it’s inappropriate - but
when needed results are not forthcoming, one tends to
wonder.
God bless you for being such a blessing in sharing!!!
February 21st, 2008 at 9:17 am
Michael,
I was supposed to read this today. I have been really making a focused effort over the past month to begin EVERY day with scripture reading & prayer. I had become “too busy” to do that consistantly for a while & the Spirit was prompting me to resume this practice. He also has prompted me to be quiet & just listen for His voice & I have done that. The result has brought a deep sense of peace & completeness to my spirit. The idea of writing down what He says is a wonderful idea. I think I will write them in a notebook so I can look back over them down the road when I need to recall them.
Thank you for your inspired words of wisdom that you write every day. God has given you so many wonderful gifts to share. They are amazing! I look forward to reading them every day. Keep sharing.
Be Blessed,
Jan Gray
February 21st, 2008 at 9:35 am
Great insight. I have definitely been outside my comfort zone for a while now. Unfortunately I wasn’t as faithful a prayer as I’m becoming, and there was a price in despair and confusion. Then as I pray more I see more in the Word.
In 2 Samuel 5:6 the Jebusite enemy said “David couldn’t break through” (MSG). No breakthrough for David! But verse 7 says “Nevertheless David took the stronghold” because he had a different strategy - go after their vital water supply and their dependence on their idols for self-defense. Notice that their taunting idolatry provoked David just the same way Goliath did. He did get the breakthrough.
Here’s a real deal for overcoming fear though. Verse 9 says David made the stronghold his home and called it the City of David. He so thoroughly removed the enemy from a stronghold blocking God’s plan for his life and destiny that he could LIVE in that place. No compromise. No partial healing. No identity problem here. No lack of boldness. He changed its name to his name.
February 21st, 2008 at 9:55 am
AMEN! THESE WORDS ARE SO TRUE. I HAVE EXPERIENCED THEM FOR MYSELF. I HAVE YEARS OF WORDS GOD HAS GIVEN TO ME. I GO BACK OVER THEM FROM TIME TO TIME TO SEE HOW GOD HAS BEEN FAITHFUL TO HIS WORD. IT WILL SO ENCOURAGE YOU. WITH IT COMES A DEEPER RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD. HE NO LONGER IS A FIGMENT OF YOUR IMAGINATION,BUT A VERY TANGABLE PERSON. HE BECOMES YOUR EVERYTHING. MILDRED
February 21st, 2008 at 10:01 am
Excellent Word! I love the “faith zone”! I always enjoy & look forward to getting these words of encouragement and have shared many of them with our congregation. They have been blessed as well.
God Bless,
Pastor Jack Dilday
February 21st, 2008 at 10:14 am
Dear Michael…
Thank you for this wonderful site !!! I read it much more faithfully . You continue to bless me !!!! Your words are simply amazing !!! Your words of wisdom and edification are so “timely”
The WORLD is truly “twisted”, always trying to impose “the right way” to live, which is truly the hand of Lucifier himself !!! I thank the LORD for your experience, your suffering, which has given you a blessed hand to pen these words for the SAINTS.
Thank you Michael
Blessings this day & Expect Miracles
In His Love
Paula
February 21st, 2008 at 12:18 pm
“Prayer” does NOT have it’s origins in “humility”. It IS relational, and identity oriented. The Father did not “create” prayer. It IS, rather, the NORMAL two-way communication between us and Him… Father and Sons.
“God did NOT give us a spirit of fear…” The Spirit God gave us has NO aspect of fear in it. Niether does the Holy Spirit. Fear is not a component that the Father designed to use in our lives, FOR ANY REASON. We are NOT taught by difficult circumstances, especially not by “fear”. It is a component of ERROR, the original LIES told to Adam by the enemy, that Adam then carried into the earth. Adam, in essence, actually “prophesied” fear into the earth by declaring “we were afraid, and hid ourselves”! He then took it with him and it has compounded in this “separated” earth environment ever since. It was not God’s design for Adam to do so.
Jesus reversed the connection to fear by His sacrifice, establishing our freedom from it in the Blood Covenant. We are not to be subject to it, trained by it, or even acknowledge it as having any sort of legitimacy.
Do not buy into anything that advocates anything to the contrary! Selah.
February 21st, 2008 at 12:52 pm
this has been very very helpful to me today! Very timely! thank you. and God BLess you all that you do.
February 21st, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Hi Jeff;
Thanks for posting. I think you missed the message I wsa trying to get across. First of all, I am not saying that prayer has its “origins” in humility, but rather observing that a life independent of communion with God is an independent life and I believe that is a prideful way of life. Humility in part, recognizes a need for higher strength and wisdom knows that strength to come from relationship with God.
Secondly, I am not suggesting, nor was it written, that God gives us fear or that we are to be taught by it. We are however faced with it from time to time and we must face it down by the grace and with the strength of God operating within us.
If you have never experienced fear as a believer, you have lived a sheltered life indeed. Most of us have experienced fear and today’s message was about dealing with fear by listening to God and obeying His voice.
Hope that helps my brother clarify what I was trying to communicate and what I wasn’t trying to communicate. Blessings, Michael
February 21st, 2008 at 1:34 pm
God has been dealing with me about my prayer life. I have been getting up early in the morning to pray, I haven’t done it every morning, but I have done it some mornings. The Lord keeps bringing me to Psalm 55:17, In the evening and morning and at noon I willl pray to, and cry aloud, and he shall hear my voice. He has been showing me that praying is not just a one time a day thing, but it is a lifestyle. God is calling all of us to a deeper prayer life, where He will show us more of Him. That is where I want to be.
February 21st, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Michael,
Thanks for responding.
It was unclear to me, in what you wrote, but that could have been due to my current personal sensitivity to “subtle” errors in doctirne that color so much of what’s expressed today. The Holy Spirit is revealing this in our traditional paradigms and I’m involved in sharing it.
I don’t want to read anything into what you may be saying, but must say that much of what is being expressed today has this error running through it.
It goes to the Identity issue of “sheepdom” vs. “Sonship”. A good example is in what you wrote, “The more capable you are, the more you better learn to depend on God, or you will set yourself up for a fall.” I thought God’s idea was for us to be “in His image”, and VERY capable. If a Son truely understands his/her relationship and calling, it has with it the inherent understanding of a right order in things. But, He intended for us to be mature and “able”, and to know it in “confidence”, not pride. But, the ordered understanding of that balance is built into a right understanding of Sonship.
We have been conditioned with the wrong information on identity, and this goes to the very heart of a fundamental misunderstanding we have as Believers, in our functionality. And, that, in turn, is due to hundreds of years of traditions and dogma subtly building into us a very wrong understanding of just who we are and what we are really all about. This was built, in turn, on a subtle but profound error in the nature of leadership. Etc., etc.
I have written extensively on this, but you won’t see it in the majority of venues or expressions… yet. But, it’s coming, because the Holy Spirit doesn’t speak to just one person. (I’m seeing small elements of it starting to surface in responsible places.)
However, we have to be listening to His constant “still small voice”, and to realize that we all “filter” His input through our previously established conditioning, coloring the truth He releases (you and I included!). As well, we filter it back out again in sharing what we thought we heard. That’s why we desparately need “iron sharpening iron” to be safe… the prophet is subject to the prophets.
You and I NEED to be talking right now on a regular basis. Things are changing, are about to escalate, and if you are hearing the “sound” of this in the spiritual background, then I’ve been given the responsibility to plug in at least one of the pieces to the puzzle. And, it concerns, directly, leadership to begin with… folks like yourself, who influence thousands every day. We don’t want to stay in any error, as we go… there’s too much to be lost. We were meant to be constantly improving what we know and share.
If you are prompted, and can see your way clear, let me know. It’s crucial, now.
Bless you, Sir Michael, Son of the Most High God! Jeff
February 21st, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Amen.
February 21st, 2008 at 10:31 pm
Thanks! I needed that today!!
February 22nd, 2008 at 8:57 am
Jeff, you are not hearing correctly, because your responses are incorrect.
Perhaps your hearing is clouded by some past experience?
Thank you Michael for the great direction and godly counsel. I have been many times bound by fear, and need to more often pray… especially after mountain top experiences.
Jeff, with eyes to see, you will see that you and Michael are saying the same thing.
goldie~warrior bride~daughter of the most high eternal God!
February 22nd, 2008 at 11:58 am
Michael,
your post concerning being paralyzed by fear,couldn’t be more on the
money for me today. Thanks for listening to God, and printing this great
post.
cheers,
Rainer
February 22nd, 2008 at 1:48 pm
God the Father is our Counsel.
In Him and Through Him all things become clear.
“A huge cloud of wittness is all around us. So let us throw off everything that stands in our way. Let us throw off any sin that holds on to us so tightly. Let us keep on running the race marketed out for us.”
Hebrews 12:1
I would say that for many of us(at least for me) prided in our knowledge and accomplishments is holding us back. It is in this that we must show humility, and acknowledge where the real power comes from.
I thank God daily for the spirit of love, peace, and humility.
I praise Him for guiding me to your site several months ago.
Keep the faith
Desperate but not Distracted,
In His Mercy,
Robb
February 22nd, 2008 at 7:12 pm
AWESOME ADVICE AND PERSPECTIVE!!!!!!!
PRASIE GOD!
March 15th, 2008 at 5:21 am
Recently began a sales career in the Insurance industry. I do great when I’m in the home with clients but setting appointments over the phone cold calling I am miserable. No appointments, no sales.
Now I feel the fear of failure creeping into my gut. I’ve been praying!
Thanks for the encouragment.
God Bless
March 15th, 2008 at 11:31 am
This is such amazing timing. I must say, I have been in the midst of the most “adverse” fear rendering situation…..I have been on my FACE in the LORD .
Fear has been “gently” lifted, and I have been encased in the LORDS’ LOVE and direction. Clearly, being on the Potters’ Wheel hurts, yet, the new creation he is forming in me, has me FREE …..All I want to do is worship HIM, & please HIM.
Thank you Michael for this wonderful site.
Blessings , Paula
March 15th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Paula… It is my pleasure to serve. I am greatly rewarded knowing the Lord is using my efforts to lift many. Thanks for posting your comment.