Declaring Freedom

“Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”

I’ve put off writing this one for a while. Mainly because of the amount of effort it will take me to process and share my thoughts. But I promised you guys I would always be vulnerable, and I always want to share what the Lord is teaching me. I think it’ll help by prefacing with this: I’ve never taken the Enneagram personality test, but I could tell you without a doubt I’m a Type 2 – The Helper. And if you know me, you can learn quickly that acts of service are my love language.

I called my mom one day from inside my closet. I was having a panic attack. I remember telling her that it felt like I was drowning. A few weeks later, after another panic attack, we had lunch, and I told her how stressed I was all the time. “Is it stress, or is it fear?” she asked. I hadn’t thought of that. I think we often act like stress is a normal part of our day or just part of our personality, but there is something behind the stress. It’s fear.

In these past few months, when I’ve been hit with crippling anxiety, it’s been vital for me to figure out what the fear behind it all is. And if you’ve looked into the Enneagram system, you know each type has a basic fear. Type 2 – basic fear – being unwanted and unworthy. God quickly let me know that my fear of what people think is even more profound than that because I’ve been allowing people to define my worth. People-pleasing: also typical for a Type 2.

Fear is the enemy’s greatest tactic. Whether it’s fear of worthlessness like me, fear of failure, fear of being incapable, fear of not being loved, or fear of losing control, we all have them. We are all broken.

“And brokenness never has to be the end – brokenness can be the beginning of growth.”

I don’t want to be afraid of broken things. Whether it’s my brokenness or seeing the brokenness in someone else. But I do want to deal with it. I want to call it out. I want to DO something about it. I want to grow.

“You fears may think you can divide us and conquer us and imprison us in small places, in small lives, with high fences that keep out hope and possibility and each other and the lives we really want. You may think you can make us cynical about dreams and apathetic about hope and dubious about possibility and people and prospects. But we’re all over you: you aren’t meant to drive our lives; you’re meant to teach us something about life.”

Behind each of our fears is a world of lies we listen to. The best way to overcome fear is by finding the lies. So that’s what I did. I sat down one day and thought back to my panic attacks and the thoughts that were going through my mind, and I wrote them all down. I then looked for scripture that spoke the truth. And then Ryan and I spent some time in prayer, speaking the truth over the lies.

“But the thing is: When I find my fears, I find my idols. When I find where you lurk, I will look you in the eye until I know your realest name. And I will say your name out loud…Break your idols and you break free of all your fears.”

My idol – caring more about what people think of me than what the Lord thinks of me. This is just bizarre to me. The Creator, the One who knit me inside my mother’s womb, the One who knows my inner-most thoughts, who knows the number of hairs on my head – He knows me better than anyone else, so wouldn’t it make sense that His opinion about me is the most accurate? But instead, I worry more about what strangers think of me.

What I don’t want you to think is that there isn’t freedom from your fears for you. God offers us freedom right now – in this very moment. We don’t have to go through years of therapy (not against counselling at all – if you need someone to walk through this with you or to help you process, find a counselor), or follow some 12 steps to freedom. We have to declare it. God gives us all the tools.

“So I will go on crushing all of your life-absorbing fears to a fine powder because this is the deal: I want to be better at letting go of you [fear] than letting go of joy. I don’t have to worry about what’s up ahead because Christ is the head of everything. And I don’t have to fear what’s around the next corner because Christ is already there too.”

So, I’ll be here declaring freedom from my fears and truth in the face of lies because truth breaks fear.

“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

 These quotes are from Ann Voskamp’s “The Way of Abundance” devotional. She is so dope, you guys.