he reasons within himself. He doesn’t know quite what is wrong, but he believes he ought to be able to do something about it. This basic confusion and uncertainty of life, about his own personal integrity undermines every certainty of life, especially where a relationship to others is concerned. When a child grows up feeling that he doesn’t belong to his earthly family, he can hardly be expected to under stand and appreciate the feeling of belonging to his hea venly fam ily. In his earthly family he was taught that it was his fault he didn’t receive the blessings of love. So when he becomes a Christian, he carries this same impres sion into the new relationship. Thus he will sooner or later have difficulty with God’s promises that assure him of peace, forgiveness, and victory. It is most difficult for him to conceive of himself possessing the realities of God’s grace because he secretly believes he never quite meas ures up. Now we see how the Satanic trap of uncertainty is laid deep within the subconscious. Whenever a person is weak in his sense of belonging, he is an easy victim of doubt, fear, anxiety, guilt, and depression. To be released from this snare a person needs to be led to a clearer understanding of what God says about His children; how He loves them, accepts them in Christ as they are to make them what He wants them to become — all on the merits of what Christ has done. Every em phasis on “measuring up” to deserve God’s approval must be minimized. The major emphasis must be on the mer its of Christ which are imputed to the believer through His grace. These persons need a clearer understanding of the ministry of the Holy Spirit who manifests the attributes of Christ through us (Gal. 2:20; 5:22, 23). This is done by His own decree that He has accepted us in the Beloved (Eph. 1:6), that is, in Jesus Christ. He is working in us “ to will and to do of His good pleasure” (Phil. 1:6). God will not fail to finish what He has started in us when He saved us! He will accomplish His eternal purposes, and Satan cannot stop Him. The Book of First John, Romans, chapter 8, and Psalm 103 are especially helpful in this situation. His Word is able to deliver His children from all the snares of the devil. His Word has the key to Satan’s trap! II. THE SNARE OF FEAR. Recently an anxious lady came to my office and stated her problem: “ I am having trouble reconciling fear and faith. God is blessing my life in many ways, but I also have some fears, and I am ashamed of them. How can my faith be real if I still have fear?”
This problem is rather frequent in Christian hearts, and many are ashamed to admit it. The fear trap holds a goodly number of God’s children. Some are seized help lessly by the fear of small, closed rooms, some by the fear of high places, some of falling, of sickness, and of death. One is panicked by open country, another is dis mayed by crowds, and another is terrified by the sight of knives or a large body of water. Many cannot ride an elevator, airplane, or in a small car. A large percentage of sincere Christians have great difficulty giving a public testimony or in leading in public prayer because of self- consciousness (another form of fear). Satan is busy trap ping God’s children and hindering their service. Fears of this kind not only have the element of the unknown but they have attached also the factor of shame or guilt. This is what diverts the victim’s attention from his real problem and so makes a snare of his fear. We need to understand the dynamics of our fears if we are to overcome them. My first step in helping this lady with her fears was to show her how she was misapplying divine truth. I said, “It is true that to be afraid is a lack of faith, but there is more to your fear than meets the eye. God prom ises to supply all our need, doesn’t He? (Phil. 4:30). I believe that promise,” I continued. “ If I truly believe, why then is my stomach empty? Should I be ashamed for a lack of faith because I am hungry after I prayed?” She replied, “ There is a missing step between your faith and God’s filling your stomach. You must do some thing beside believe.” “Yes, that’s right,” I answered, “ and there is a miss ing step between your faith and the removal of your fear. You need to understand what that step is. It is the step of overcoming hidden pride.” Shame, or embarrassment, is the element which in tensifies our fears and makes them doubly hard to over come. We not only feel guilty for fearing some situa tion, but we fear the opinion of others. We try to hide our fear emotion and pretend, at least to others, that it isn’t there. As a result, we avoid every situation where this fear might be exposed. Thus Satan closes in on us with his subtle trap. We refuse to face our real problem. When we examine this closer, we see that the shame is actually pride. We are afraid of humiliation. We don’t want to admit we are lacking in Christian virtue. So we pray anxiously for God to take away our fear. In reality we are asking God to protect us from exposing our true condition, to keep up from embarrassment, to protect our self-rightousness. This is pride and God doesn’t seem to answer. Thus our fear remains and we sink deeper into distress. As long as Satan can keep us ignorantly praying for something that is against God’s will, he has an advantage of us for our prayer will not be answered. This gives him an opportunity to fill us with doubt and a feeling of incompetency as a Christian. Knowing the dynamics of our fear doesn't suddenly re lieve us from it. But it opens the way for overcoming it intelligently and prayerfully. We won’t be desperately praying for God to protect our pride when we see what we are doing. Rather, we will be seeking true humility wherein real faith is ignited. Instead of praying for God to overcome our fear as such, we will be praying for courage to face the situation and to admit that we have a fear. Then we will be able to believe that God’s pres ence with us will give the victory He has promised in Isa. 41:10; 2 Tim. 1:7; and 2 Cor. 12:9. Our faith will be rewarded as step by step we develop new patterns of courage and overcome the old fear of being found to be afraid.
M r. W agner is a professional counselor on the staff o f the Christian Counseling C enter, Pasadena, California.
NOVEMBER, 1962
19
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker