You Don't Need To Be Ruled By Fear When You Have Jesus

I'm a different man even from five years ago because I'm no longer afraid

Are being ruled by fear? For most of my life, fear held me on a leash and dictated my progress in life.

I was afraid of what people thought of me, if I was making the right decision & of never receiving love.

Today, I'm fear-free and don't suffer in isolation anymore; Jesus is with me.

When I look back, it was like there was a persistent seed of doubt planted into my thoughts. The simplest tasks would have me scared of the potential outcomes.

If I was going to a new restaurant, I was consumed with thoughts of potentially embarrassing myself if I didn't research the layout of the establishment.

One terrible thought would roll into the next terrible thought.

The thought of embarrassing myself on a night out with my girlfriend would roll into the idea of her leaving me and inevitably ending with me fearing dying alone with no one coming to my funeral.

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I was a slave to my fear, but because I was always a slave to it, I didn't realize I had never experienced genuine freedom.

At a call center job, I was having several panic attacks, but I didn't know what they were until I was hit with the worst one that forced me into temporary disability.

I had finished a call, and I just felt this overwhelming sense of doom. In a call center environment, you're constantly being monitored and you'll get scrutinized if you take too much time off the phones in between calls.

I knew I needed to take the next call, but I felt like I wanted to cry. I didn't know why I was overcome with such fear, which caused me to reach out to a supervisor for help.

I signed off the phones and pulled a supervisor to the side, begging them to give me 15 minutes to get myself together after opening up to them about what I was experiencing. Their reply: "Sorry, we need all-hands-on-deck."

For about a year, I would bounce back and forth between disability and working in the call center. It was like an endless loop of misery, as I hated my job, but I felt even worse not showing any value by sitting at home doing nothing all day.

The peak of my fear was when I was on disability and felt scared to leave my house, which is a symptom of agoraphobia and common for panic attack victims. That's when I knew I had a serious problem and needed professional help.

It took months of therapy to build the courage to make the choice to leave my job and soon after leave my failing relationship.

It was around this time that I was searching for a spiritual identity and, just as scared as I was about life, I was equally afraid to believe in God.

Spiritually, I was lost. I thought remaining agnostic would give me solace, but it only kept me in this state of fear.

Overcoming my fear and anxiety took years of self-reflection and searching. But the difference maker was when I finally started trusting my God-given instincts.

When I stopped being scared of myself and started listening to that voice in my head, I stopped being lost. That fear of rejection and aimlessness disappeared when I realized I wasn't alone and had a heavenly father who was trying to reach me throughout my life.

I was getting guidance, but I ignored it. When I failed, I refused to call on Him. When life wasn't happening the way I wanted to, I blamed Him when I was indifferent to His messages.

I'm a different man even from five years ago because I'm no longer afraid. Everything that I've done in my life has been based on guidance through instinct.

When I felt called to go toward a new adventure or to stay away from someone; it always worked out in my favor. God has a plan for us all and it may not be what we originally wanted or at the time we planned for it to happen.

But trusting in Him is what led me on my path to prosperity. As a relatively quiet person, I've had to trust in God to accomplish things I never imagined I'd do. I've spoken publicly in front of hundreds of people and been on Primetime television all without fear because I trust in God.

Be as patient with yourself as Jesus is patient with you. You don't need to be ruled by your fear if you put all of your worries on to Him.