It has been said that – ‘Fear not’ is mentioned in the bible 365 times, one for each day of the year. Fear is a very real thing going back to the beginning of time. Used by the dark forces in this Universe (Ephesians 6:12) to deceive us and rob us of the true way of life that God first intended for us. Which is to live FEARLESS in Him. There is no fear in true love. It cannot live where powerful love abides. (1 John 4:18)
Can you imagine a life without fear controlling you?
Many years ago, I began drinking booze around the age of 14 and as the years went on this led to three decades of drug abuse as well. This fuelled tremendous violence which fuelled more fear and confusion which led to bouts of intense paranoia, loneliness and depression. And finally suicidal thoughts.
As early as 15 years of age I remember sitting in a pub alone drinking pints of beer with whiskey chasers lined up alongside feeling very lost and depressed holding back tears of depression from curious onlookers. I didn’t know how to express myself back then and I had no idea who I was or who I was meant to be. This went on and on and on. I became more closed in. I handled my nerves with a steady intake of alcohol which went on throughout the coming years that were awaiting. I began in those early days to control the people around me with the same fear that was controlling me. I was becoming a monster.
Me – Criminal
The only identity that would fit me would be the one of a violent and cunning – criminal. The criminal mind must give very little away in order to survive and so by his very nature is closed in, untrusting, scheming, deceptive and disconnected from normal functional life.
Very early on I felt this kind of life the only domain for me to dwell and hide in. In the dark shadows I would lurk away from the everyday mass of people that compared to me- I thought, seemed to have it all together. The wide boys seemed the only crowd that really got me and these were the guys that respected my dysfunctional behaviour as their own type and so instead of rejecting me they encouraged me.
When you find yourself sitting in this kind of company, laughing, making fun of inflicting violence in nearly all its forms you think you have found your brothers in life. Even though I didn’t trust anyone I desperately wanted to trust someone. My soul was crying out for a home, a place to belong. I was tired of people looking at me and calling me a lost soul behind my back. I didn’t want to be lost anymore and I didn’t want people seeing through into the real me.
Whenever I tried to fit in with so called normal people, I was always too impatient and, in a rush, to get to the front of the que. “I’m not gonna wait in the que to then get let down by you people further down the line,’ I would think to myself consciously or even unconsciously. ‘I’m taking what I need right now by force because I’m in a hurry to get back in the shadows where I can lick my wounds in private seclusion and give myself some time to think out a plan. And then I will make a clean break from this place of darkness on my own terms and nobody else’s.”
The hope of things changing for the better admittedly may have been desperately looming, but the reality of this ever happening begins to fall away rapidly with the help of the drink and drugs and the layers of guilt that start to pile on. Why guilt? because deep down, there is a heart in there that has an insatiable need for love that’s almost too painful to bare.
There is a place so deep and dark that needs so much light to be shined into it so it can be revived that the person in question will stop at nothing trying to find that light. Even though he doesn’t know where to find it. The TRUE LIGHT that is. So, be it in destructive relationships, crime, booze, drugs and many more temporary fixes that are available in the world he will search for it. Any light will do or so it seems because he’s so desperate. Whether it be a false one or not, if it momentarily kills the darkness, that will do. But just a moments rest from the tsunami of emotional confusion, is never enough. Why? Because you will always be found wanting until you find the REAL TRUTH. The truth the Bible say’s – ‘WILL MAKE YOU FREE’ (John8:32) But till that day finally arrives. All that time till then, your relationships are slowly eroding around you bit by bit, day by day as you ride the relentless rollercoaster of hopelessness.
The reputation
The violence, the maverick approach to money, the reputation, the LIE, became me. My false identity. This was the picture I had chosen to give the world. I say chosen because I believe there is a point we choose to participate. I knew right from wrong when I was young as I do right now.
But false childhood burdens and the fear of insecurity that had been cultivated over the years most definitely had its talons well hooked into me. But at some point, I had said to myself “I’m gonna live this way” and with a strong will I stepped into the ring and participated. This might not be the case for every soul. But I would say for most people there is a turning point, a point we turn and say to ourselves “I’m going this way, I’ve had enough I’m gonna be somebody”
I trusted no one so this non civilian lifestyle suited my defiled state. It gave me a place I could call home, a place to hide, a place to exist and a place where the fear, anger, loneliness and despair could be harvested and channelled into something that might be successfully used to get me through life. I would consolidate if you like all the negative in my life and use it as a monstrous weapon against the world to survive and maybe even succeed. That was the plan anyway. I was becoming institutionalised by fear. Although I was walking the streets freely, geographically speaking. I was continually chained up in a constant paranoid, deluded prison.
I lived in this prison for 30 years.
I served prison time when I was in my late teens early 20s but the real time I served was in the world and trying to fit in somehow. Fighting the fear and the loneliness, desperate for acceptance in a world I found too terrifying to contemplate without the ongoing help of booze and drugs to get me through. I felt like a fly on the wall every waking hour, just observing life rather than having a meaningful role to play in it. It was like I didn’t belong here. I felt disconnected from society somehow and what it expected from me, I couldn’t bring.
I served a double life sentence chained up in fear, abandonment, rejection, rebellion, confusion, doublemindedness, anger, paranoia and deception. I leaned tremendously towards an over excessive grandiose notion that if I had it all: The money, the mansion house, the power even fame, the real me inside would never be revealed. I would be hidden away, locked down in the basement, a secret forever. I would have got away with it. Never ever to be found out.
When you’re feeling all this stuff inside you just want to hide behind a mask and be somebody else because you have been convinced the real you is worthless. You will even begin to believe you are a mistake. So out of rebellion towards – mainly yourself, you begin to create a new you. Your new invented self is the only you who has any chance of success and staying alive.
Those of us that are naturally strong willed will not lie down easily even though we want to hide. Something keeps telling us to fight back even though we are confused, the voice keeps telling us to never lie down even if it means making somebody up. A false self to keep going. But this Lion heart wilfulness to survive any way possible, if mis directed can become very dangerous indeed. We then become a ticking time bomb waiting to blow up in the face of whoever wants to try us. Test our real identity beneath the façade. We begin to persuade ourselves that we have worth by making them fear us. This can lead to serious violence. Physical and psychological towards ourselves and others around us.
Our pain is very real.
The deceptions we have lived with are very real. Fear is very real. How we feel is very real to us, all the above are very real but in fact they are all a LIE. And these lies have been actively deceiving the world since the time of the fall. (Revelation 12:9)
The TRUTH is that this state we are in is a LIE to keep us desperately believing we are beyond hope or that we never had any chance of happiness from the beginning. “I am a misfit, there’s something wrong with me” I might think one day but then the next day I might feel in complete control believing the lion heart myth that I can take on anyone and everything that comes at me with even greater evil than the person or situation that is allegedly inflicting the threat toward me. Or perhaps I tell myself “Better I hadn’t been born altogether than live this stinking life” this I often would convince myself of, retreating into a state of depression and isolation.
Once you start thinking in this self- harming way you are on a downward slope heading for a certain crash. You’re like a man heading down the steepest ski run you can think of without ever being shown how to stop. And YOU WILL want to stop sometimes when the going gets too tough or you’re dangerously getting close to being found out. But heading down this fast run you will pick up so much speed you won’t even be able to look to the left or to the right. All you will be focused on through the fear which is driving you is the crash that awaits you down the road. And at this point, out of desperation you even start to encourage the crash to happen much sooner to get it all over and done with.
So, you begin to conjure up ways to go out with that BIG REBELLIOUS BANG. This might look like the image of Al Pacino’s Scarface/ Tony Montana standing on the balcony of his millionaire Miami mansion screaming at the world that’s finally ganged up on him and came to take him out – ‘you wanna play rough!? OK let’s play rough!” as he fires like crazy his machine gun out of his mind on cocaine taking more bullets himself than what he is delivering to the enemy of his soul. A last stand of DEFIANCE. Or is it! who’s really won?
I loved that movie too. But that’s it. It’s just a movie.
People we have known personally or even memorable characters we have read about or have watched movies on become our idols when we are desperate for an identity of our own. In an almost childlike manner we attempt to adopt an image which we desperately hope will give us the courage to stand strong in a tough world we feel ill equipped inside to tackle.
When we too are lost, the guys that went out with a BIG BANG are the men we respect the most because this attitude speaks to our desperation inside. The down trodden deluded within begins to create an allusion for all to see. Now it’s even possible at this very fragile point that we may even begin to believe our own made up! mythology.
This is all the bad news and a terrible LIE we’ve bought into. But there is tremendous GOOD NEWS!! There really is a way out for you as there was for me and everyone that truly wants out!
Christ Jesus the son of God said these words – “All authority has been given to ME in heaven and on earth.” (Matthew 28:18)
“The thief (satan) does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” (John10:10)
“The spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed. (Luke 4:18)
Yes! you can be set free If you really mean in your heart to change and want it with all you’re being. Do you?? “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” (Matthew 7:7)
If so, here’s a good starting point: “Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 4:17)
Repent!! That means turn your heart towards God and cry out to Christ Jesus alone and ask Him to forgive you and cleanse you and heal you of all wickedness dwelling in your heart. Be willing to turn away from all sin in your life including the WILLINGNESS to try and forgive those who have hurt you in the past. Be WILLING to truly surrender your whole life to Jesus Christ and He will give you in return for your broken life a NEW LIFE and a NEW IDENTITY in Him. A REAL IDENTITY that will stand FOREVER unmoved and unshaken by anything in this world or any other world to come. He is God. Trust Him today. Don’t DELAY! He loves you SO much.
He say’s to you right now – ‘Come to Me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28)
All scripture has been taken from the NKJV
God bless you.