Is It Fear We're Afraid Of?

In a song recently released by my favorite band, an interesting concept and questions are posed: "We find what we're made of through the open door.  Is it fear you're afraid of?  What are you waiting for?" (Switchfoot, Love Alone Is Worth the Fight).  Throughout the course of life, we are presented with a series of open doors.  Through these doors lie the potential for great happiness, success, and fulfillment of personal potential.  Why would we ever choose to not pass through those doors?  I suppose it's because it's never just "that easy" to walk through the door.  There is usually a strong sense of sacrifice, and even a leap of faith that precede passing through the darkness and into a new and happier stage of life. And with leaps into the dark come fear of what lies before us.  

What is it that we fear?  I think that is a very personal question that each of us could answer differently. Based on our circumstances in life, age, abilities, weaknesses, and strengths, we all have different things that cause us to fear.  I have several of my own that, when given enough power, drive me to do negative things like act out in my addiction.  I have had to come to terms with many of these as best as I can to truly understand myself enough to begin overcoming my weaknesses.  I fear failure.  I fear what other people are going to think of me when they discover my weaknesses.  I fear myself and how I will react to my own relapses (is it weird to say that I'm in an emotionally abusive relationship with myself?).  I greatly fear losing the things and the people that I love most as a result of my poor choices.  I fear standing before God one day and telling Him that I was a coward.  I fear having to tell Him that I failed.

One would think that these fears would be motivation enough to stop doing stupid things.  The ironic thing is that it is these fears that drive me further into doing stupid things.  Fear controls me.  Fear drives me.  Fear keeps me from running through the initial dark to get to the light shining through the open door.  Fear keeps me running back to addiction like a freakishly dependent child.  I want to live independently, but I don't know how to.  Fear takes my power from me and hands it to my addiction.  Fear doesn't motivate me; it immobilizes me.  It's because of this that I can answer in the affirmative to the question, "Is it fear you're afraid of?"  

So I suppose I should not be asking what it is that I fear.  I should be determining what fear is and how I can overcome it.  Here are the conclusions I've come to thus far: fear is a falsety.  Fear is an illusion.  Fear really only exists if I allow it to exist.  I know this is getting all philosophical, but think about it!  What is fear if we never give it power?  What is fear if we never give it ammunition?  What is fear if we never feed it from the buckets of our insecurities?  Fear is nothing but a power that we choose to relinquish; a bullet that we choose to load into the empty chamber of the gun pointed at our hearts.  If we choose to withold that power from our personal demons, our fear will cease to exist; and with it will go the negative and painful results that come from fearing. Our courage will then have the opportunity and ability to grow in an incredible way that we never previously thought possible.

 I have felt a great sense of relief over this past week as I have come to the important realization that I can choose to stop fearing fear.  I can reclaim that power that I have pitifully been handing over to equally pitiful, unseen demons, and use it to add to my strength in my battle.  In short, my friends, there really is nothing to fear as we move forward towards those open doors in our lives.  You need not be experiencing recovery from an addiction to understand what I'm talking about.  This applies to all of us in our personal battles.  We do not need to be controlled by the evil that is fear; rather, we can reserve that strength for ourselves and move forward with courage.  There are great things waiting behind those open doors.  It is well worth setting aside fear in order to obtain those things that will make us most happy.  

My name is Spencer.  I am a recovering addict and a son of God who is learning to let go of his fears.  And with that, I soldier on.