LEAVE YOUR FEAR AND LIVE YOUR DREAMS

The information that enters your life (through your senses) can form your personality and determine the course of your life. An unguarded heart therefore appeals to fear triggers that can potentially deflate your much-needed enthusiasm to pursue or live your dreams.

Unfortunately, most human beings don’t exhaust the values of their minds in their lifetime. The late Dr. Myles Munroe is reputed to have said that the richest place is the cemetery because a lot of unutilized gifts are buried there. And according to Dr. Dennis Waitley:

The greatest psychologists in the world say we only use 5% of our brain. If you could force your brain to work at only half its capacity, you could learn 40 languages, memorize the encyclopedia from cover to cover, and complete the required courses of 3 dozen colleges.

Do you wonder why your heart (mind) is so important? In Genesis 1:26-27, God created man in His own likeness. And in Genesis 2:7, God poured His breath into man’s nostril, and he became a living soul. From that moment, man’s heart became a rare-type resource that is unlimited except to the utmost bound set by God Himself.

Your mind is more than a gold mine or an oil field. It is one of the greatest gifts of God.

It’s important for you to know that your mind’s prime position has made it highly sought after by the devil, knowing that once he has your mind he has a strong grip on your life. That’s probably one of the reasons Proverbs 4:23 warns you to guard your heart with diligence because issues of life spring from there. It’s the spring of life because, among other things, God originally designed it for you to love Him with it.

Deuteronomy 6:5 commands us to love the LORD our God with all our “heart” and with all our “soul” and with all our “strength”. Our hearts can’t be full of God’s love and yet have room for yirah or deilia.

Your mind is more than a gold mine or an oil field. It is one of the greatest gifts of God.

By the way, the Hebrew word for heart in Deuteronomy 6:5 is the same for mind. It describes your intrinsic essence, including thoughts, conscience, and the totality of your soul that makes you who you are. You are what you think!

Our hearts can’t be full of God’s love and yet have room for yirah or deilia.

At salvation, your mind is regenerated (enlivened, empowered, made active) to understand God’s instructions, including how to carve out and pursue your dreams. When Paul addressed the Corinthians, he said, “…we have the mind of Christ.” (1 Cor 2:16, NIV). That means we can think (fearlessly) like Christ and live victoriously as He did.

WHEN YOUR SENSES FOLLOW YOUR FEAR…
It is not that we are limited by our senses and we fail to go far in life but that we allow fear to dwarf our mental stature and are unable to break the limits.

We are a creation of choices. And quite often, our choices define us by either limiting or developing us. Sometimes, life’s difficulties present odious options which force us into a labyrinth of “the more you look, the less you see”, and we choose the negative not because it’s our preference but because of fear.

Prophet Elijah was a rare-type prophet in the Bible because of the special dynamics of God’s Spirit and grace on him. He boldly confronted Ahab, one of the ruthless kings in the Bible. Elijah forbade rain in the land and it was so. (1 Kings 17:1).

It is not that we are limited by our senses and we fail to go far in life but that we allow fear to dwarf our mental stature and are unable to break the limits.

Elijah displayed the supremacy of God’s power before many Baal worshippers on Mount Carmel, having invoked God’s covenant name and prayed fervently. (1 Kings 18:36-39). Mission accomplished. Then he prayed to God, and by his word again, heavy cloud gathered, and the sky opened with a downpour. (See 41 to 45).

In the events that followed, Elijah seemed to be at his lowest point; he began to experience burnout. He was then touted by Jezebel, King Ahab’s wife, and he resigned to fate, praying that he might die. Meanwhile, something significant happened earlier. Jezebel threatened him with death, with a promise to make his life like those of Baal prophets he had slayed.

1 Kings 19:3 says, “And when he saw that, he arose and ran for his life, and went to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there.” (NKJV). Before this time, Elijah had not only moved by his five senses but also by God’s Spirit. He spoke truth to Ahab’s power and nothing happened to him. He confronted the deadly, occultic prophets of Baal and annihilated them. Now, the queen coughed out murderous threats and he caved in to fear. What then happened?

Elijah followed his sense of sight alone when he saw the “messengers of death” from Queen Jezebel. And then naturally, he heard discouraging words which, combined with a fearful sight, would attenuate his hitherto enthusiastic spirit. He still had God’s Spirit on him, no doubt. He still believed in God.

In fact several thousand years after, the angel would describe John, the Baptist, as one to be “filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb” and go before God “in the spirit and power of Elijah...” (Luke 1:15-17, NKJV).

Elijah had yielded his senses to the ascendancy of his sight over and above God’s ability to deliver. And so, he became fearful to the point of exhaustion, depression, and preference for suicide. He was facing the South Pole! And guess what, his fearful heart manifested his fear-filled prayers when “…he prayed that he might die.” (1 Kgs 19:4, NKJV). While in fear, it is not enough to merely pray; you must pray in faith and not out of fear.

The reality of Elijah’s dream wobbled because he did not elevate God’s ability over Jezebel’s fearful threat. We will talk about praying out of fear in detail in chapter 14.

In essence, moving by sight alone might create an unnecessary sense of urgency that makes you disobey God or flout laws and government policy. Actually, anyone who’s prone to moving by fear is hardly, if ever, able to please God.

While in fear, it is not enough to merely pray;
you must pray in faith and not out of fear.