Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode 19: How to Turn to God When You Feel Afraid
76 Plays5 years ago
This Week’s Key Idea:
We find peace and freedom when we choose to enter our fear and pain instead of escaping it.
Mentioned in this episode:
Resource: How to Turn to God When You Feel Afraid
Preorder In a Boat in the Middle of a Lake here: inaboatbook.com or Amazon
Connect with Ruth here:
Connect with Pat here:
Please share Rootlike Faith with your friends!
This podcast is produced and edited by Angie Elkins Media, Inc.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Root Like Faith
00:00:08
Speaker
Hi, I'm Ruth Schwank and I'm so thrilled you're listening in with us at Root Like Faith. It is our deepest desire to encourage and equip men and women to be rooted in God's Word, transformed by the love of Jesus, and moved by His mission in the power of the Holy Spirit. Nothing is more important.
Facing Suffering and Fear
00:00:27
Speaker
Well today we are continuing the conversation on suffering and more specifically how to turn to God when you feel afraid. I know firsthand the tendency to want to run when suffering hits so I'm going to share a bit of my story and practical steps you can take to turn to God when you feel afraid. So let's get started.
Personal Struggles with Miscarriages
00:00:56
Speaker
On today's episode of Root Like Faith, we are talking about how to turn to God when you feel afraid. And like we've been saying over the last several weeks, we all face trials, hardships, and suffering. But there are many times we are so overwhelmed by our circumstances that we can't see the path forward. And so I'm hoping that this is a really helpful episode where you can understand how you can turn to God when you feel afraid.
00:01:26
Speaker
It's just me today because I want to share with you some stories that of times in my life where I have faced fear, where I have faced anxiety over my circumstances. And I think back to quite a while ago, I had about a 10-year span where I had five miscarriages.
00:01:51
Speaker
We have four kids. Our oldest is 18. We have an 18-year-old, a 16-year-old, a 13-year-old, and an 11-year-old. And I'm sure if you've been listening along with us, you've heard us talk about them from time to time. But during this span of about a decade, I actually had, so I had my four children that are alive today. But in the middle of all of that, I also had five miscarriages. So I had nine pregnancies in 10 years.
00:02:18
Speaker
And it was a roller coaster of emotions for me because I was afraid. I was afraid. I couldn't every pregnancy. I was so afraid. There was no answer as to why I had the miscarriages. Some of them were as late as 20 weeks, 16 weeks. So I never felt
00:02:39
Speaker
felt settled I guess. I really really struggled through that time and I think about emotionally it was just so I was so up and down and really tried my best to cling to God in His Word because what else could I do, right?
00:02:56
Speaker
So that's a season of my life where I feel like I can remember just living in fear and trying my best to turn to God over and over in the midst of that.
Coping with Cancer Diagnosis
00:03:09
Speaker
And then more recently, as you've probably heard us talk about just a few years ago, my husband was diagnosed, my husband Pat, who is usually on the podcast with me, he was diagnosed with a blood cancer, an incurable blood cancer.
00:03:25
Speaker
And praise the Lord, he is in complete remission now without a trace of cancer in his body. And we're just praying that God keeps the cancer away. But I remember when he was diagnosed and honestly wanting to just, I mean, what do you do? But.
00:03:44
Speaker
I can't really remember a lot from that moment or that day except for that I was in complete shock, frozen in fear and wanted to throw up. The only thing I could do is come up to my bedroom and be alone and try to somehow wrap my mind around what was going on. And so there's certainly times in our lives where we
00:04:10
Speaker
freeze in response to fear. It's natural, actually, because it's not natural for us to immediately turn to God, I don't think.
Reacting to Fear and Finding Hope
00:04:20
Speaker
We live in a world where there's a lot of pain, there's a lot of suffering that we face, a lot of trials, whether it's
00:04:25
Speaker
cancer or finances or Sickness of some sort or a disability an accident a tragedy whatever it is An unfaithful spouse really the list could go on and on and on the things that we face in life Can be really really hard and it's natural for us to want to freeze in the middle of our pain It's now wonder that we feel paralyzed by our pain and frozen in our fear
00:04:55
Speaker
And, you know, I share a lot of this, Pat and I both share a lot about feeling afraid and just really our story, all about our story in our book that I know we've mentioned over the last few weeks in a boat in the middle of a lake, trusting the God who meets us in our storm. We really pull back the veil on our personal lives. It's hard to do that and share just exactly how we were feeling.
00:05:21
Speaker
with you, but we're just hoping that God uses that, uses our pain for His glory in your life to bring you hope and help you through whatever it is that you may face in life someday, but know that you can turn to God no matter what you are going through. And so today I really want to focus specifically on how we can turn to God when we feel
Steps to Turn Fear into Faith
00:05:47
Speaker
afraid.
00:05:47
Speaker
Because like I said, like when Pat was diagnosed, I wanted to throw up. I had to be by myself in my room. I couldn't even, I was just trying to wrap my mind around what was going on. And it didn't, it wasn't like one day. This went on and on and on. I think it took a couple of weeks for me to feel like I could function a little bit normally. I was gripped by fear and anxiety.
00:06:12
Speaker
So when we face pain and suffering, we have all sorts of choices that we can make. We can run, we can hide. Some of us try to choose to find comfort or relief in someone or something else besides Jesus. But one thing we shouldn't do is nothing.
00:06:32
Speaker
And that's why I want to talk about responding to our fear and how we can turn to God instead of those other things, how we can turn to God and not away from Him when we are feeling afraid. And I'm hoping we have some tools here and I'm hoping that this process to follow will really, really help you if you are facing fear now or for when you face fear or anxiety in the future.
00:07:02
Speaker
In Psalm 56.3, the psalmist writes, When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. That's a verse that I came back to over and over again, and I still do. When fear threatens to grip me, anxiety rises up. Psalm 56.3, When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.
00:07:25
Speaker
So I want to give you a few practical steps to take the next time you find yourself staring danger in the face. And each of these steps are meant to help you not only turn to God, okay, it's not just turning to Him, but also then trusting in Him that He will take care of you no matter what you are facing.
00:07:50
Speaker
So the first thing that I would say that we need to do is we need to identify the fear. So I don't know if you noticed, but in Psalm 56.3,
00:08:02
Speaker
The psalmist says, when I am afraid. Okay, so he's not saying if he says when I am afraid, which means that fear, we know this already, but fear is inevitable at some point in our life. Most of us, I mean, there's a lot of us that face fear every single day. We might just be a fearful person or we might be facing something that is lifelong. So there's a lot of us who face fear each day.
00:08:30
Speaker
But I want to remind you of something here. Fear is rarely from God. There are times, obviously, that God can use fear to protect us and take us out of a situation or something. But in general, fear like this that we're talking about over our circumstances, it's rarely from God. And so we need to pay attention
00:08:53
Speaker
to when we are feeling afraid and why because I think we can get so caught up in our head in our fear and in in our anxiety and we live there for a while until all the sun the light bulb comes on and we're like wait a minute why am I letting this like rule my I mean sometimes I do this for a couple days and then I'm like what is wrong with me
00:09:13
Speaker
Why am I worrying about this? So fear loves to live in the shadows. And one of the most important first steps that we can take is to identify what we are specifically afraid of. So I want to give you a common a common list of fears, some fears that
Addressing Personal Fears
00:09:30
Speaker
we pretty much
00:09:31
Speaker
probably all can identify with at some point in our life. I think I can. Um, and so what you're going to do then is you're going to identify the fear. So here's some common fears. Okay. And then you're going to write the fear down that you're struggling with the most. This is the first step. Here's some common fears that we can face fear of death, uh, fear of sickness, which I think can also go along with death. I guess fear of suffering in general.
00:09:56
Speaker
Fear of the future, fear of finances, fear of people. I think we can have a fear of just the unknown when life feels uncertain and unknown and we don't have control over it.
00:10:11
Speaker
those are just some common fears. I'm sure there's many others that I didn't list there. I just wanted to give you some common ones because I want you to kind of see where we start here. So we identify the fear then. So I'll just use myself as an example. So my, my fear, um, there was a couple of fears going on with my husband for in general stars. I'll use him as the example. So, um, in his sickness,
00:10:36
Speaker
The fears that I was facing, I think the biggest fear probably was just the unknown. The fear of the unknown and the uncertain future that we face because honestly you're in the middle of that and you don't know. I mean none of us know obviously but when you're facing death
00:10:53
Speaker
In the face and knowing that you are sick and that could happen to you It's a whole nother ballgame and everything feels so uncertain and unknown And so I feared I guess I feared death for him and I feared the unknown for all of us and so
00:11:13
Speaker
So that's me identifying the fears that I was struggling with at that time. So I was struggling with the unknown and then obviously as time went on those changed because I found hope and courage as he went through treatment and things
00:11:33
Speaker
Things were better and I realized that we could put his cancer in remission. Of course I still fear his death to some degree, but I have to say it's a lot less now because I've seen how they can take care of him.
00:11:55
Speaker
And also because I learned how to turn to God when I felt afraid So there's the the fear for me was death the fear for me was also the unknown and I'm gonna stick with that unknown and uncertain future because I think that's probably the place where I struggle the most and
00:12:14
Speaker
I like to know what's gonna happen. And maybe you can identify with that. And this, my life is not like that anymore. So fear of uncertainty and fear of the unknown. So that's naming the fear. It's identifying the fear and saying this is what I'm struggling with. So write down, that's your first step, to put a name to your fear. Write it down. What is it that's really the bottom line, the thing that you're really, really struggling with?
00:12:44
Speaker
And then secondly, you're going to identify the lie. Once we have identified our fear, it's critical for us to trace the lie underneath our fear. So that's really the issue, is there's stuff underneath this fear. There's a reason we're afraid. And this is another way, when we identify this lie, it's another way for us to turn to God when we are afraid. We're trying to get underneath or behind what is making us so fearful.
00:13:14
Speaker
Here are some questions that we would want to ask ourselves when we're identifying the lie. And this is not, there's more questions you could ask, but this is a good list, it's not comprehensive by any means, but this is a good list of questions to ask yourself when you are feeling afraid, when you're trying to identify what's making you so fearful, the lie.
00:13:42
Speaker
So what are we not believing about God's word? What are we not believing about God's word? Is there a promise I am doubting? Is there some kind of deficit in my relationship with God the Father?
00:14:00
Speaker
Is this a spiritual attack meant to lead me toward doubt and despair? Am I trying to be God? So here I am. I've identified my fear. My fear is I'm afraid of an unknown and uncertain future. So now when I identify the lie, I'm going to say, what am I not believing about God's word? Well, I'm not believing.
00:14:24
Speaker
that he says that he has a future and a plan for me. So I'm doubting. I'm doubting that promise from him. What is the promise? I'm doubting. I'm doubting that God says you have a future and I have a plan for you. I'm not trusting him. The other question that I said, is there some kind of deficit in my relationship with God, the father in this circumstance?
00:14:49
Speaker
Maybe I'm not believing that God really loves me, right? Like he says, he says he loves me. If he loves me, then he's going to take care of me. So I don't need to be afraid of an unknown future. So see how these questions kind of help you get
00:15:05
Speaker
to the bottom of the fear. They help you identify the lie that you're believing. So the lie that I'm believing when I say, is there some kind of deficit in my relationship with God the Father? Well, yeah, I'm not believing that he loves me and he'll take care of me. That's the lie I'm believing, that God doesn't really love me, that God doesn't really care about my future. What am I not believing about God's word? Well, the lie there,
00:15:33
Speaker
I believe that God doesn't have a future for me, that He doesn't have a plan for me. That's the lie I'm believing. So this helps you identify the lie underneath your fear. And there's usually a lie behind our fear.
00:15:50
Speaker
It could be, here's some examples for you. The lie that God's not going to be present and powerful. The lie, like I said, that we're not loved. The lie that God has left us or abandoned us. The lie that we have to create our own security.
00:16:06
Speaker
the lie that God doesn't know what he is doing really the list goes on and on and on but God wants to free us from being enslaved by fear and so we not only need to identify the fear like we did to begin with we also have to have to identify the lie behind it and then lastly we have to identify the truth and
Replacing Lies with Truths
00:16:30
Speaker
Really, this is the point where, you know, this is what sets us free and enables us to walk confidently no matter what the outcome is, okay? Because when we can identify that lie that we're believing, get underneath it and identify, well, first identify the fear, get underneath it, identify the lie that we're really believing, then we can turn that lie around into truth, okay? So this last step is where we're going to identify the truth.
00:17:00
Speaker
you
00:17:00
Speaker
And one simple way to identify the truth is to take the lies that we have named and replace them with the truth of God's word. It's really, really simple. Much of the Christian life is choosing to walk by faith and not by feeling. And yet God has promised us to give us his peace. And he does so increasingly, right? He gives us the joy of sharing in his life, the abundant life that Jesus talks about.
00:17:30
Speaker
So we have to identify that truth. We replace our lies with the truth of God's Word. I love John 10-10. It says, the thief comes only to steal and to kill and to destroy. I have come that they may have life and have it to the full. And Jesus is saying here, I have come not only to give you life,
00:17:54
Speaker
But I want to give you a full life. And so we can walk in the freedom of God's promises and His truths when we say, listen, this is the lie I'm believing, and I'm not going to believe it anymore. I'm going to replace it with the truth of God's word. And this is a battle. It requires staying awake spiritually and persevering in difficult seasons. This, for some of us, will be a daily battle.
00:18:24
Speaker
I remember my husband, I love, he has this little notebook. And once he was diagnosed, as he was going through treatment, he would write scriptures in this little notebook.
00:18:39
Speaker
He just continued to write scriptures as he would come across them that encouraged him and he literally every single day I would see him with that little notebook and he would just be reading the scriptures. He was replacing the lies that he was believing with God's truth.
00:18:56
Speaker
And that's how we find freedom from our fears. And I just love that. He still pulls that little journal out. He still uses that to replace the lies with truth. It's a battle. This is something we have to do every single day is hold on to his promises and cling to his word, turning away from fear when it rears its ugly head, right? Because it does, like just when you think, okay,
00:19:23
Speaker
I think I'm doing good. Then it just all of a sudden comes out of nowhere again. And when we do this, when we learn to do this and we do this consistently, it develops a deeper intimacy with God our Father. We find a greater trust in Him. We find more peace and we find less fear. And this is what Jesus wants for us. I have come that they may have life
00:19:52
Speaker
and have it to the full. So here is just a really simple way to identify your lie with truth, okay? So we've already gone through those other steps of identifying what we were afraid of in the first place, then also identifying the lie that we're believing, and now we're gonna identify the truth. And so fear, let me give you an example. Fear is, when I'm afraid,
00:20:19
Speaker
My fear is telling me that I'm alone, okay? What fear is telling me, so I'm identifying something that the lie that I'm believing, fear is telling me that I'm alone. God is telling me, Hebrews 13.5, I am with you.
00:20:38
Speaker
This is how simple it is. Write that down in a notebook. What fear is telling me? What's that lie that you're believing? I am alone. What God is telling me? What's God telling you? God's Word says in Hebrews 13 5, I am alone.
00:20:54
Speaker
With you. Okay, so it's that simple. It's that last step that will bring you Freedom and peace when you are clinging to God's Word turning away from your fears and turning to God and turning to God God's Word so I want to encourage you to answer that question.
Converting Fear to Hope
00:21:15
Speaker
What is the fear? What's the fear? What's the lie telling me?
00:21:19
Speaker
And then what is God telling me? So that's turning your fear and your lie into hope and truth. It's identifying the truth. So those are the simple steps that I want to share with you today on how to turn to God when you feel afraid.
00:21:39
Speaker
I mean, it really is pretty simple, but I think so many of us live in our head. We live in our fear. We live in our anxiety. And we're so gripped by it that we don't even know what to do. So I hope, I hope those steps help to bring you freedom and hope. And like Jesus says, give you life, but not just life, life to the full.
00:22:03
Speaker
Well, I've loved sharing a bit with you today.
Resources and Community
00:22:06
Speaker
And I pray that these practical steps will help you turn to God and not away from Him. And I know how hard that can be. So everything I talked about today, we have put together in a simple downloadable resource for you called how to turn to God when you feel afraid. And in that resource, we literally walk you through everything I just talked about.
00:22:30
Speaker
And I hope it'll be a resource you turn to over and over again, and please share that resource with your friends who are struggling as well, who could use that guide. So I'll be sure to put the link to that in our show notes. Also, in a boat in the middle of a lake isn't here until September 8th, but you can pre-order the book today and start reading right now with the first three chapters.
00:22:55
Speaker
And we also have a comprehensive scripture memorization guide for you, whatever you are facing. It's really comprehensive. We have all sorts of topics that you can go to and then read the scriptures that pertain to that topic to help you. We also have an exclusive access code that will be to our private Facebook group.
00:23:17
Speaker
Uh, with Pat and I, where we're giving you a peek into our lives and sharing more resources with you over the next few months. So you can head to Amazon Barnes and Noble or anywhere books are sold to pre-order your copy. And we'll be sure to leave the link to the pre-order goodies in the show notes.
00:23:36
Speaker
So good to be with you today. And as you know, if you've been joining us every week, each week we walk away with a key
Conclusion and Key Takeaways
00:23:45
Speaker
idea. It's the main takeaway summing up what we've talked about. So today's key idea is we find peace and freedom when we choose to enter our fear and pain instead of escaping it.
00:24:01
Speaker
We'll be sure to put that key idea in the show notes as well as anything else we referenced at RootLikeFaith.com forward slash podcast. You can also follow us on Instagram at Patrick W. Schwank and at Ruth Schwank or on Facebook.
00:24:16
Speaker
And as if I didn't say it enough already, I know I say this every single week, but I really, really mean it. We're thrilled you're joining us. And we welcome you into our family here at Root Like Faith. If you enjoyed the show today, would you be so kind to leave us a review or a rating? That really helps us and we really, really appreciate it. Talk to you soon.