Paralyzing Fear

Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

—1 Peter 5:7

The monkey bars were always the place on the playground I found most thrilling and most terrifying all at once. I watched the other kids laughing as they mindlessly romped up the ladder rungs to get to the first bar. Without a care, they let their bodies swing across from one bar to the next. It looked so effortless, and they seemed fearless and natural.

I wanted to join them. I wanted to play on the monkey bars more than any other piece of equipment on the whole playground.

But I was afraid.

I’d tried it once but it hadn’t worked out so well. I’d held up the line. The longer the other monkey-bar climbers had to wait for me just hanging on the first bar, the more I could hear sighs. Cheeks full of air were being blown out behind me.

One boy got so tired of waiting he got his friend to hoist him up to the second bar and off he went. Others thought that was a great solution, so they followed suit. Suddenly not only was I afraid, I was embarrassed too.

All I had to do was release one hand from the first bar and thrust it forward to grab the next bar right in front of me. But I couldn’t make my muscles move. No matter how hard I tried to will my hand to move, my thoughts paralyzed me. All I could think of were the bad things that could happen the minute my hand let go. So, there I stayed—for almost an entire recess.

A teacher finally saw what was happening and walked over to me. She placed her hands on my waist and helped me down. I know she thought she was helping me. But it felt like she was just agreeing with what I feared most: “You can’t do this.”

Falling would have been better. I could have gotten up from a physical fall. But being told that failure must be avoided at all costs kept me from ever getting back up on those monkey bars again. I would sit day after day staring from the swing across the playground. Watching other people do what I wanted to do.

Fear of all kinds can do this to us. We grab hold of it and don’t let go. We want to overcome it, but we find ourselves hanging on that first bar, paralyzed from moving forward. Fear strangles the momentum that propelled us to grab the bar in the first place. There we stay, until someone hoists us down. And they lower us in more ways than one.

All those years ago on the playground, it would have been better if that teacher had just said, “Lysa, staying stuck in your fear is way worse than any other choice you could make right now. If you let go of that bar and happen to catch the next one, you’ll move forward and prove to yourself that you can do this. Or, if you let go of that bar and fall, you’ll see that the ground isn’t so far away. It won’t feel great to fall, but it won’t be worse than all the stress and exhaustion you’re experiencing just hanging there on the first bar.”

Fear makes the gap between where I am and trusting God seem an impossible chasm.

Years later my youngest daughter Brooke was playing on the same kind of monkey bars with a friend and fell. When I took her to the doctor, he confirmed what the swelling in her arm had already told us. It was broken. But here’s the amazing thing: Brooke’s arm healed and she kept climbing the monkey bars.

I still won’t attempt them.

I want to shift from trusting myself to trusting God, but how? Fear makes the gap between where I am and trusting God seem an impossible chasm.

But God doesn’t want us to stay paralyzed in fear. And He has equipped us with comfort and reassurance. Over and over throughout the Bible, He tells us not to fear. The next time you find yourself clinging to your fear in a state of paralysis, remind yourself:

The Lord my God will be with me wherever I go (from Joshua 1:9).

God has redeemed me and summoned me by name. I am His (from Isaiah 43:1).

Nothing can ever separate me from the love of God (from Romans 8:38–39).

I can hand Him all my anxiety because He cares for me (from 1 Peter 5:7).

God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control (from 2 Timothy 1:7 ESV).

With the foundation of God’s Word before us and beneath us, sweet sister, we can let go.

Dear heavenly Father, thank You for reminding me over and over not to fear. Lord, I hand over all my fears to You, and I will dwell on Your Word and Your strength. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.