Torment – N – 1: extreme pain or anguish of body or mind: AGONY.
Most people who don’t know me intimately would be shocked to learn that I struggle with fear and anxiety. I just don’t present as “that person” and for most of my life, I wasn’t. Fear never really grabbed a hold of me until I had my third son and found myself battling Post Partum Depression. For me, PPD manifested itself primarily through fear, anxiety, mental fog and confusion, and rage. It showed its ugly self the first Thanksgiving after my son Noah was born, as I had a panic attack in my driveway and I didn’t start having balance again until my youngest daughter was 24 months old.
Once my hormones were balanced and I no longer dealt with PPD, I found that I still struggled with fear and anxiety. While it was not like when I battled PPD, it also wasn’t like before I had PPD either. To my great displeasure, I realized this was to be my new normal. I have been dealing with moments of anxiety and fear almost daily ever since. It has taught me a lot about how someone can suffer silently without any observable indicators. I never knew this was a thing before. I knew people struggled with anxiety and depression but I never truly understood them…I never realized the fierceness of the battle until my feet began to walk it myself.
1 John 4:18 says “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.” I love Scripture! Like any believer, there are some verses that become more personal than others. For me, 1 John 4:18 is true to the deepest parts of my being. If there is one thing I have learned it is that fear is torment! It is a true mental enslavement.
But…as much as I hate fear, it has given me a gift. Now it certainly didn’t intend to do so but I find that the Lord is always “restoring what the locusts have eaten” by redeeming the storms, wars, and trials we face. First, it has given me the tremendous blessing of being aware of others and their own personal inner war. I am far more compassionate when someone is walking through the desert. I see them because I am them. Second, every moment I have chosen to trust and believe God in spite of my fear, has increased my faith. Every moment I don’t allow a panic attack to overcome me, every time I don’t worry if someone I love will make it home, every moment I don’t allow myself to be swallowed by the fear of this illness or that one…this disease or ailment, every moment I don’t become paralyzed by the fear of death, sickness or man … each one is a place where, by God’s grace, I am actively trusting God over the war within. Every time I believe in faith that the Lord has me is a moment of victory and an active movement of faith over fear. Every time I pray and the Lord gives me rest and calms my chaos, I see the truth of Phillipains 4:6-7 come alive, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.“
Faith is an interesting thing…it is not something you can merely be taught, it is something you must choose to do. It is a place where the Lord brings our battle before us and calls us to trust Him, all the while He is strengthening our weak hands and feeble knees to do so. Every moment that we believe God, we render fear of no effect and powerless. It doesn’t mean these things are no longer present, it just removes their ability to hold us captive.
It is a worthy battle to trust our good God who has always been faithful over our fear which has always been deceitful.
Isaiah 41:10 says, “Fear not, for I am with you; Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.” In the midst of so much fear, let us who claim the name of Christ, live knowing that God is our helper and upholds us. May we point others to the only One who can do the same for them. Only Jesus can heal not just their body but their very soul. He alone is the great Rescuer and Savior this world needs. He is not just a healer of the present worry that has gripped man in fear and anxiety, Jesus is one who goes deeper and heals the inner man, the deepest part of the person. However, if we are living in fear, we can’t point others to Jesus. We can’t speak about the power of Jesus if we forget Him in our own lives. I have learned through my own struggle that the problem is not the presence of fear but instead the choice to live in it and be enslaved by its grip. By doing so we are forgetting the overcoming power of the Holy Spirit, the resurrected Jesus who sits on His throne, the fact of answered prayer and the goodness and faithfulness of the God we call Abba.
Brothers and sisters, we light this dying world not by echoing their narrative but by proclaiming God’s Gospel.
I understand that it is human to feel fear, but faith chooses not to live there. When we see it rising within us, we must turn to Jesus and ask His help to overcome it and trust Him even when everything looks hopeless. Let us worship the Lord not tremble before man or the present storm. May we be a people who proclaim Psalm 94:19, “In the multitude of my anxieties within me, Your comforts delight my soul.” Now more than ever the world needs to know that there is a God in heaven and that in Jesus there is present hope and eternal forgiveness.
I used to think that genuine faith meant that I would be removed from some of these struggles…now I see that instead, faith means victory over them. It means that while I walk through my struggles, the Lord is with me causing me to overcome them. Much of that is painful but it’s real and raw and soul-changing. I like that more. While it is definitely more humbling for my soul, it is also more beautiful of a story God is doing within me. Only the Lord would take my difficulties and make something beautiful from it…only He could give all this wrong a purpose. That is one of the many ways Jesus is so far beyond compare, He enters into the broken and heals. He brings wholeness and completion. He redeems and restores and as Ecclesiastes 3:11 says- He makes everything beautiful in its time. In Jesus, not even my anxiety and fear are left without a redeeming why. How amazing is our Lord!
“I sought the Lord, and He heard me And delivered me from all my fears.” Psalm 34:4