Mulligrubs?

Fear can be a trap, but if you trust in the Lord, you will be safe. (Proverbs 29:25 ERV)

"I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear." (Nelson Mandela) What fear evades conquering in your life? For many, fear is a daily struggle, making every step forward an effort so magnificent that it is almost impossible. We all fear different things at different times in our lives, making us not so much "unique" as "similar". For all of us, fear can indeed become a trap, paralyzing us and keeping us "fixed" in one spot from which we just don't seem to break free. Most don't recognize the paralyzing effect of fear, but when you stop to really think upon what fear does to us, this idea of getting us bogged down in the mulligrubs for a while becomes pretty evident. Don't know what mulligrubs are? It is the condition of our emotions in which our body feels the "griping" of our intestines!

The mulligrubs leave us feeling a little beneath the problem at hand. We get into the place of emotional stress where we feel "blue" or like we are in a "funk". Our emotions eat away at us until we get deeper and deeper into a pit of melancholy. In this sense, fear becomes a trap - a deep pit from which we can see no way of escape. To overcome fear, we need faith. Faith is the opposite of fear and something we don't always understand how to "attain". Fear is based on lies - either those we are telling ourselves or those made up by others who speak into our lives. Faith is based on truth, and more importantly, on our trust in that truth. To counteract fear, we need to pour in truth. 

Truth is the antidote to fear. It is the very thing that helps us to take steps into the realm of trusting. If we have been in the habit of being fearful, paralyzed and held in place by some issue at hand, when truth comes, it may be hard to trust at first. We want to question it because it is so "opposite" of where we find ourselves that we have a hard time accepting it as trustworthy. The exact opposite is what we actually need in our lives! We need to look up from the pit of fear and be released by gaining truth about the issue at hand. Truth sets the captive free and none is so bound as those who are bound by fear. Truth embraced leads to trust, and trust requires the first step "toward" God and "away" from that which we have given so much power to in our lives - that thing we fear. 

Yes, we give power to that thing we fear so much, and yes, God wants us to have his power to overcome it. It is as we change our focus from being on the issue we fear to being squarely on him and his power that we begin to move into trusting for different outcomes in our lives. Fear doesn't need to hold us back - it can propel us forward - if we turn away from it and toward the one who is all truth and in whom we can totally trust. Just sayin!