Fear & Joy
At first pass you may think that there is not much of a connection between the two emotional states of fear and joy. But you would be wrong. I have found that there is a relationship and it is inverse.
Most have heard and would agree that fear is the opposite of faith. And, I think for the most part this is a very fair statement. Joy is usually aligned with happiness and contentment in God. Again, this seems to be a accurate appraisal. The heart of this inverse relationship is based in understanding how fear dominates our lives.
A deeper look at fear:
During most of my professional career I was driven to considerable worldly success by the fear of failure. I feared embarrassment. And, mostly I feared not being liked and accepted by others. At times I feared losing my job. I feared losing my family and I feared for their safety or well being. As you see at some level I feared almost everything. If you knew me back then you might not have immediately seen it. But just under the surface there was an element of fear driving most every action and decision. As faith has grown in me these fears have dwindled and shrank. Over time I began to see that I did not have to always take action on everything. I did not have to exert my will on others to get the outcomes I thought I needed. I began to see that many times when taking action motivated by fear that I was actually generating more controversy and chaos. I saw that when I just focused on keeping my life in order and stayed out of the way that God would show up. Situations that before faith would have quickly been assessed as terrible or bad I began to see differently. I saw that even when things in the short-term did not go my way that God would show me a different plan of action or direction to take that I had not previously seen. Many if not all of these routes eventually led to outcomes that where better than what I could have concocted for myself. In short I began to really trust God with my life. Faith grew and fear shrank.
The unexpected:
So given that much of my life both conscious and subconscious was spent obsessing on how I could manage the world to avoid my fears from coming true I now realized that I had been wasting lots of valuable time. Time previously wasted on worrying about fears that rarely materialized would now unbeknownst to me be filled with contentment, peace, happiness and a newfound childlike Joy for life. I am not sure I ever really knew what Joy was before I experienced it like this. But Joy for me has risen in the absence of fear. Joy has come from trusting the Lord with all of my life including my Fears.
