Everyone knows that you should never go to Walmart on the eve of the coming of a big storm, but that is exactly what I did yesterday. Hurricane Sandy, aka Frankenstorm, is coming quickly towards the East Coast, and it’s all anyone is talking about. I had no option really – I had no food in my house – so don’t judge me for my poor choices. It seemed as if all of Fredericksburg was there; even though we have four or five Walmarts in town, you would have never known it. Aside from the crowds and endless lines, the thing that stuck out the most was the amount of fear dancing in the air. Whispers of the coming storm, the over-buying of food, the empty battery display cases, and a general look of worry on shoppers’ faces all said the same thing to me: we love to worry.
Put fear’s greatest hits record to better use: build a bicycle and get moving on your dreams.
In fact, we don’t just love to worry, it’s second nature to us. It feels like home. It’s comfortable because we are just so used to it. When fear rears its ugly head around us, we accept it with complacency and submissiveness. We don’t just tolerate our fears, rather, we actually feed them by nourishing the million “what if’s” that dominate our thoughts. “What if’s” are the lyrics that fear sings to us, and if we are not careful, fear will sing our dreams to sleep because we will be too afraid to ever get started. I recently listened to a sermon by pastor Steven Furtik from Elevation Church on this exactly subject, and he said it perfectly: “Fear’s greatest hit is a song called ‘What if?’.”
If you aren’t careful, the “what if’s” in your life will keep you from ever doing anything with your life. Fight the fear; once you decide to face fear, you will start to be able to see just how weak the lyrics of its serenade actually are.