“Fear is when you put more faith in the enemy than in the Divine”

Dave Arns

I sit here in the middle (or what I hope is the middle) of this Coronavirus/COVID-19 crisis. My social media pages are a constant barrage of articles citing new outbreaks, new mandates for safety protocol, new opportunities to help out those in need, and new memes or jokes (mostly about toilet paper). Everywhere I look, Coronavirus is there–lurking and waiting to bait me into fear or panic.

I was speaking with my spiritual coach/Bible-study teacher the other day. We were talking about the state of the world and the hopelessness that so many are feeling. My favorite word right now is “despondent.” It fits so much of where my head and heart are at. He asked me to define “fear”. I responded with some quip about a chemical response triggered by the amygdala when he smiled kindly and corrected me. “Fear,” he said, “is when you put more faith in the enemy than in God.” He said that fear is just a misplacement of trust. We so often trust the wrong side to win, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy for ourselves.

In an effort to be as authentic and transparent as possible, I will admit that I find myself feeling like a fraud sometimes for creating this blog. I fear that people won’t find value in it. I fear that people will laugh at it. I fear that they won’t take me and my work seriously. I fear that people will brush off the concept of healing through writing because it’s “not real therapy.” (It very much is, by the way.) I let that fear sink in and control whether or not I put myself out there. And until recently, I thought I was just protecting myself.

Now I know better. Now I know that every time I allow those fears to control my actions or my bring down my positive mindset or disturb my happy heart, I’m really just telling the enemy that I trust it to win in the end. Let me be clear: I’m not doing that anymore.

Coronavirus/COVID-19 is a real threat. It’s harmful and deadly–and not just to our lives, but our businesses, and schools, and communities, and relationships as well. The enemy is always so good at being scary. But I choose to put my trust in God and the Divine. I choose to tell fear to go to Hell and drag the enemy back with it.

We will come back from this. Healing starts with tiny pen strokes on paper. Tiny taps on a keyboard. Tiny seeds that grow into forests. Tiny thoughts that bloom into powerful ideas.