Conquering Fear in the Family Helps Build Happy Homes – 3-B – Bev

HOW TO HAVE A HAPPY HOME
Conquering Fear in the Family Helps Build Happy Homes
Bev Robinson

I have had a difficult time with writing about fear in the family. In talking with Ras about this I realized part of my difficulty was I took it on myself early in life to not let fear overcome me. I tended to be a tough little kid. Not until I became an adult and understood what the Scriptures taught about faith did I learn how to really combat fear.

I know there are women who are afraid of their husbands and probably some men are afraid of their wives. There are children afraid of their parents or other adults. With bullying so rampant in schools now there are children afraid of children. One time years ago a lady in our church stopped me in a grocery store parking lot to ask me about a teenage son because she was afraid of him. I was amazed

The main fear I have had through the years has had to do with my children. I wanted them to make right choices and I wanted them to be treated well. But when those fears come, I go to the Scriptures to feed my faith. I also claim the promises I received for them at different times in their lives.

One of my favorite passages of Scripture that combats fear is in Philippians 4.

Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. Philippians  4:6-7 (NLT)

Within this Scripture is the remedy for worry caused by fear. When we are thankful to God with our whole heart for the things he has done in the past there is no room for worry or fear.

The next two verses in Philippians tell us how to maintain peace in our lives and not give into worry or fear.

And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you. Philippians 4:8-9 (NLT) 

Sometimes you can be fearful about something and not really know how you became so fearful. If you have the fruit of fear, there is a root of fear that came somewhere in your life. God showed me such a root one time.

In the first paragraph I wrote that early in my life I determined I would not be fearful. As a result there were not many things that made me fearful. But there was one thing that occurred in my life a few years ago that puzzled me. I became afraid to stay by myself at night. I was ashamed to say anything about it and for a long time I didn’t. Ras would have to be gone out of town some nights and I would awake at every sound and have to get up and go check it out. This didn’t make sense to me. I prayed about it but for a while got no answer. God finally showed me the root and what to do about it in an unusual way.

Occasionally on my day off I go see a movie. I didn’t know anything about the movie I chose. I looked it up on the internet and it was rated very high with audiences, but not the critics. I don’t even remember the name of the movie. If I had known more about the movie I would not have gone to see it. I like mysteries, but not like this one.

When I got in the movie I found out it was about a girl who had been kidnapped and put in the bottom of a deep hole deep in the woods. She escaped and told the police. They couldn’t find the hole so they didn’t believe her. Her sister moved in with her. One day she came home and her sister was missing. She went to the police, but they didn’t believe a crime had been committed. This girl discerned that the same man who had kidnapped her had also kidnapped her sister to lure her out to the hole from which she had escaped. She set out alone to find the sister. She found the man’s hut and pictures of other girls he had kidnapped, thrown in the hole and killed.

As I got to this part of the movie my heart began to pound and I started to jump up and leave the movie. The Lord told me to sit still that He had something to teach me. It was all I could do to stay seated but I did. The girl found the hole. The kidnapper came up behind her and pushed her in. He got down in the hole to kill her and she rushed and pushed him down, climbed up out of the hole on the rope ladder on which he had come down. She then shot him dead. She went home and found her sister bound and in her basement. She wrote a letter to the police telling them where the hole was and that the kidnapper was in it.

Remember I told you at the beginning of this article that as I determined as a child not to be afraid. I never went through anything that scary, but I had similar things happen to me as a child. The Lord told me after it was over that I would be like that girl in the movie outwitting the kidnapper. He would show me how to take care of myself, much as He had done when I was a child. My response was, “yes, I believe you Lord.” He had shown me the root of the fear of my being alone and fearful at night.  Do you have a fear that is caused by a root in your life? Maybe you are not even aware of it. God will show you.

The right kind of fear is the fear of God, which is not a cringing fear. It is being in awe of Him and respecting Him to the point of obdience to what He says, no matter the circumstances.

Conquering Fear with God’s Perfect Love Helps Build Happy Homes – 3-A – Ras

HOW TO HAVE A HAPPY HOME
Conquering Fear with God’s Perfect Love Helps Build Happy Homes
Ras Robinson

1 John 4:18 (KJV)“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.”

Luke 8:49-50 (KJV) “While he yet spake, there cometh one from the ruler of the synagogue’s house, saying to him, Thy daughter is dead; trouble not the Master. But when Jesus heard it, he answered him, saying, fear not: believe only, and she shall be made whole.”

FEAR IN THE HOME is common but not always welcome. The reasons for it are seldom understood. Fear has good and bad qualities and effects. Whoever is the authority figure in a home can inherit with that authority an expectation to harm, disappoint or block things desired. Such expectations and experience might lead one to conclude that all fear is undesirable. Knowledge and understanding of fear must increase. Below I have addressed the need and process for clearing the air between parents and children and how it results in a happy home, but first let’s consider what fear is and its results.

FEAR NOT, BELIEVE ONLY. Fear that blocks the works of God in the family must be resolved. In the passage above, Jesus said “Fear not, believe only!” He said those words during a time when others were rebuking the parents for asking Jesus to heal a child who was already dead. Jesus told the parents “Fear not. Believe only and she shall be made whole.” There was fear that Jesus might not be able raise the dead child. That fear almost blocked the miracle, but the child was made whole as promised.

In ministering to couples, we often see fear in the eyes of the female and sometimes in the male as well. Perhaps this is because they might be opening themselves to rebuke or correction and they fear that. We also observe this in children towards their parents. In these cases there is need for more God-fearing love.

Good fear can indeed exist alongside bad fear. Personally, may I share with you how I learned from both good and bad fear? Notice that fear is a great teacher if you are open to learning.

DEALING WITH MY PERSONAL FEAR. As a child, I had fear of darkness and ghosts. I decided I needed and wanted to be rid of it. One dark night, leaping over the chain-link fence in the black darkness of night just as I had planned, I landed in our church cemetery. Looking about I saw a concrete grave slab and head stone. As I had planned in my mind beforehand, I stretched out on the grave slab, lying on my back. I first looked skyward and then all around and said, “Devil, you will never give fear to me ever again.” I was 17 years old. That night I claimed what Jesus once said, “Fear not, believe only” without knowing it was Scripture. I declared to the devil, “you will never cause me to have fear, ever again.” Still today, I fear not.

Many times since then I have walked through our house, barn and other structures belonging to me and I pray, telling the devil to get out and not to come back. Every night now my wife and other family members want to hear me say, “Our house is secure, Good night.”

Fearing my intellectual inadequacies, I have had to remember and say again, “Fear not, believe only.” The first university course I took was, of all things, trigonometry. Math is not always easy for me. In applying to a university immediately after graduating from high school, I was told I would have to take remedial math. I dropped the college application and joined the USAF. I decided to take university courses while in the USAF and it was then that I faced my fear of math and my ability for learning. God blessed me with a best friend to encourage me to try. I made an “A” in the trigonometry class! “Fear not, believe only!” I have now earned not one, but two university degrees.

MY GRANDDAUGHTER had a dreadful fear of needles and seeing blood. God told me to tell her, “Face your fear. When the needle is coming, look at it even as it punctures your vein. Her fear looked to me like it doubled, but she did it. After a few times doing this, she was free of those fears and is very active with her children when dealing with medical things.

MANY OTHER THINGS in our lives generate fear for us to master when we need to remember the words of Jesus to “Fear not, believe only!” Some of them could be public speaking, relationships, poverty, discipline or correction.

WHAT IS FEAR? (From Webster’s) 1. being afraid (of something or someone); 2. Worrying about something bad or unpleasant; 3. Having a reverential awe of God; 4. Afraid or apprehensive about the future; 5. An unpleasant strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger.

NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE ASPECTS OF FEAR

NEGATIVE ASPECTS: We are possibly most familiar with the negative aspects of fear. Some of these are: 1.Trembling with fear, 2. Being unable to walk down the street without fear of being mugged, 3. Regarding enemies with fear and hatred, 4. Fear of flying, 5. Fear of snakes, spiders. Etc.

This fear can paralyze the one who harbors it. It opposes God’s perfect love and pollutes efforts to love another. Fear is an enemy to faith. Fear and love strain at co-existing. When entertained, fear invites estrangement from loving others. Fear robs and prevents us from experiencing the fullness of God’s love and the love for family and others.

POSITIVE ASPECTS: When we hear the word “fear,” we usually think of the negative aspects of it. However, there are also some positive aspects. Some of them are 1. Fear that motivates good behavior, 2. Fear that helps avoid disasters and accidents, 3. Fear that prevents sin, 4. Fear that warns of danger, 5. Fear of losing that motivates winning.

Clearing the Air Between Parents and Children, Children and Parents

A home in which there is fear is not a happy home. That fear needs to be cleared.

Parents to children who fear their parents: Parents should pray about the best time to meet with the children. Choose a good and quiet place, perhaps with favorite refreshments. Speak to the kids about what you are learning about managing the fear in your home. Be quick to admit your part in creating the fear. Apologize and ask the kids’ forgiveness. Wear your best “humility face” that is straight from your cleansed heart. Explain again to the kids what you have learned and how sorry you are for the fear that is in the home. Have prayer, affirm the children and bless them.

Children to parents who have created fear in their children: Schedule another session if necessary for the children to speak and perhaps apologize to the parents for their part in creating an atmosphere of fear in the home. They should ask their parents to forgive them and pray for the parents.

Fill your home with the love of God. Fear cannot penetrate God’s perfect love. God’s love conquers fear and is important in establishing your happy home.