What are you afraid of?
That was the question our family pondered together around the dinner table tonight.
Spiders
Moldy bread
Pop quizzes
Small children who have eaten too much sugar and haven’t had enough sleep (That one is mine.)
And then somebody mentioned clowns.
And everybody was like, “Oh, yeah…clowns…SO CREEPY.”
WHEN DID CLOWNS GO FROM BEING KOOKY TO CREEPY?
Aaron piped up: “2016! That’s when Stephen King’s It came out in theatres.”
But then Gavin pulled up a YouTube video of the famous Bozo the Clown of the 1960s. He sure looked creepy to us, but the crowd went wild for him—in a good way!
Bozo the Clown 1966
I did a little digging and found that creepy clowns go all the way back to 1928, way before Bozo entered the scene.
Weirdly, the baptist church in my hometown used to have a Clown Ministry, of all things. I wish I could find an old YouTube video of that!
The reality is that most fears are irrational. Take that fear of spiders, for example. Less than 1/10th of one percent of the more than 37,000 spiders known to exist are dangerous. That’s crazy! What are the chances that the tiny guy dangling from a thread on my back porch will actually cause me any harm?
It’s ridiculous when you really stop and think about it.
Even on Vacation…
We were in Hilton Head last month and a friend from the gym—an older gentleman— warned me that there was a shark on the loose.
Yep. Those were his exact words—Shark. On. The. Loose.
It became a sort of running joke. All week we laughed about the “shark on the loose” in the great big Atlantic Ocean!
My daughter sent me this photo from one of the beach dives that caters to tourists. Her caption:“I found the shark on the loose!”
I found the shark on the loose!!!
The funny thing is that sharks only kill 6 people per year (on average). I’ve never been too afraid of sharks in Hilton Head, even though (even though!!!) there’s always a guy with a fishing pole reeling one in!
Around town, we mostly see alligators lounging on the grass next to ominous signs warning hapless tourists not to feed them. But even alligators only kill 3 people per year. (Our vacation family told us that.) While their family discussed various hypothetical vacation disaster scenarios, one of the kids discovered an online stat warning that coconuts are far more deadly than either alligators or sharks, killing a whopping 150 people every year!
Who knew?
So why all this talk of fear? Am I scaring you already?
Well, today I read an article about how fear can warp ambition. I don’t think I would have stopped to read the article at all, but I was curious because both fear and ambition are so complicated.
EVERY TIME YOU MIX EMOTION with DESIRE, THINGS GET Pretty COMPLICATED.
Think about it for a second.
Fear can be a good thing.
Fear signals danger and motivates us to respond to potential threats.
It heightens the senses and helps us recognize risks to avoid harm.
Confronting our fears encourages us to step out of our comfort zones and try new things.
BUT…Fear also has a nasty underbelly.
The article I read highlighted the fears of unworthiness, uncertainty, insecurity, and rejection as the things that could undermine ambition. And I get this because in my own life, especially as I’ve gotten older, I’ve allowed fear to cloud what could be healthy ambition.
And WHY? Why have I allowed fear to choke me like that? Have you felt it it too?
I think most fears are the direct result of a lie we’ve believed. Some of us hear these lies and vow that “We’ll show them! They’ll see! One day they’ll be sorry that they ever said THAT about ME!”
But some of us (and I’m talking about myself here), realize much too late that all our lives we’ve been believing something that was never even true. And that thing that we believed might be keeping us from doing our best work. I think it’s the reason why every single women’s conference I’ve ever been to has had one of two themes: Either “I am Worthy” or “I am Enough.” And to be honest, I’ve kind of shunned those conferences because I grew up knowing I was worthy and that I was enough.
But I’m gonna be real honest here: I grew up knowing I was worthy in the same way that I know spiders aren’t scary and that sharks rarely patrol the waters surrounding Hilton Head Island. I know these things to be true, but I’m still gonna scream my head off if a spider falls on my head, and it’s going to have to be a pretty hot day to get me to wade farther than waist deep into those tempting waves.
Seriously…
Who told you you were fat?
Who told you you were ugly?
Who told you you were average?
Who told you that?
But here’s the bigger question:
WHY DID YOU BELIEVE IT?
LIES! LiES!
So the lesson here is: the next time you’re sitting under a palm tree debating about whether or not to wade out into those tempting waves, you better look up first and make sure there’s not a coconut about to drop on your head.
I’m kidding.
THAT IS NOT THE LESSON.
The lesson is that fear is only fear because of what we don’t know. And the truth is that you don’t know what amazing things you might be capable of doing. Until you actually try to do them.
Doesn’t it seem like everybody is a little bit more anxious these days?
Late one night, Gavin and I were talking about how there’s not much we don’t know anymore. I mean, at the touch of a button, we can see where every one of our four kids is in real time. We know exactly what route to follow and even how long it will take to get to them. If I get in the car and plug that address into my GPS right this very second, a kind voice will direct my every move turn-by-turn. I don’t even have to think about it.
It’s crazy to think that just a couple of decades ago, my college boyfriend would drive up from Georgia to Indiana armed with nothing but a map and a prayer—”Lord, help me make good time.” Once or twice he just showed up at my door and didn’t even tell me he was on the way! What if I hadn’t been home? What if I had made other plans? What if something had happened to him on the way?
WHAT IF did not exist. We just lived.
It’s okay not to know what’s next, despite the fact that everywhere I go these days, that’s the question I get asked. We’re scared because we can’t see the future, and we’ve become accustomed to seeing everything in real time. But the thing is—we NEVER see the big picture. We can only see where we are right now. Those maps from the olden days are relics of yore. We know nothing now of hazy landforms or unmarked detours. We’re scared because we’ve been told that the world is a scary place and that we must be VIGILANT. AT. ALL. COSTS.
But maybe, just maybe, sitting in the dark for a little while is a good thing.
I believe a little bit of fear is good for our faith.
Just imagine those two emotions sitting next to each other in peaceful companionship. For a moment, let faith cover fear with her brave, strong hand. Give faith permission to speak truth over the lies that have allowed your fear of the unknown to grow. What wonderful things might you discover if you embarked on such a journey?
I’ve always loved this verse in Hebrews 11:1: “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”
What is the lie that’s keeping you from your greatest ambition?