My lifelong love affair with fear

(Originally posted in early fall 2007 on my old MySpace blog.)

Fear.
I've begun to realize lately that I am, perhaps more than ever, powered by fear.
I'm so thankful to God that He allows me to have a degree of self-awareness, in order to recognize what's going on inside of me, and to hopefully see things change.
It seems that I have a major internal crisis — what I call a satanic attack of fear — every three years or so.
When I was 12, I had my first experience with an eternal perspective. I don't exactly know how it happened or why, but one day I just began to think about Heaven and eternity… and it freaked me out.
Living forever? I couldn't comprehend it. (I still can't really.) I wasn't sure if that's something I wanted, but at the same time, ceasing to exist didn't seem like a great option, either. I felt cosmically stuck, and as each day, each minute, each second passed, I would draw closer to the inevitability of eternity.
That's a lot for a little guy to grasp.
I lived in my own private hell over this, obsessing and living an ecclesiastical existence. I remember going to Disney's MGM Studios that summer for an animator's camp — I wanted to be an animator way back in the day — and as I learned to draw Goofy between going on rides at the "Happiest Place on Earth," I wasn't feeling too happy.
The words of Solomon became my own as I realized "everything is meaningless." I couldn't take joy in Earthly pleasures because they were passing, fleeting moments — grains of sand on an eternal seashore. I couldn't understand how the other kids could just mindlessly enjoy the amusement park.
I was miserable. And afraid.
My mom, not knowing any better at the time, gave me some New Age book about Heaven that temporarily quelled my panic with pictures of the next life. I'd later learn about the true Heaven through the Bible and Bible-based books, but what I got out of it is that God is good, He has a special place set up for me, and that He wants me to go there.
Crisis averted… for now.

Intro to the esoteric
Three years later, as a 15-year-old, I had my first experience with esoteric lore, known to the unconcerned world as "conspiracy theories."
God has made me a seeker of truth. I've seen it painted throughout my life, and I praise Him for making me that way. It's a blessing to be concerned with knowledge and facts and truth, but it's also a curse.
My first girlfriend was a devout Nazarene girl who lived with her super-overprotective aunt and uncle, who would teach her about the Illuminati and how the End of Days was near.
While many teens my age were worried about Homecoming Court, zits and getting their driver's license, I was worried about the end of the world. I remember saying to myself, "Centennial High School is the last school I'll ever go to," because I was convinced the Antichrist was going to reveal himself within my four years there, and before graduation would successfully kill all the Christians in Oregon. I seriously thought this.
This fear consumed many days of my freshman year. It drove my best friend to even write a one-act play about "The Eleventh Hour." Of course, after the initial hysteria subsided, somehow I was able to adjust back to normal life. I broke up with Lori, too.
Fast forward three more years, and I was back to my fear of eternity.

Return to eternity
I was living so far from Christ at the time. I was either giving my heart away too fast, giving myself physically to girls or binge drinking to hide the pain. People would ask me, "Aren't you a Christian?" and I'd either say "No" or "I used to be into that."
I was treading dangerous water, and thankfully, God got my attention again one day during a lunch date with my mother in downtown Portland.
We got on the subject of Heaven again. She was asking me questions about Heaven as I put on my best Christian mask. But when I got home that night — or maybe it was a few nights later, I don't remember — something I can only describe as the fear of God struck me.
That same feeling I had as a 12-year-old was back. I distinctly remember God speaking to my heart, saying, "Yes, you forgot about eternity. Well, it's real, and it's time you realized what path you're choosing."
Of course, this was an overall positive experience. Yes, it consumed me with fear. But this was a good fear that poised me to do greater works for Him and get my life back on track.
I stopped drinking, I started going to church again, I began writing Christian music with a buddy of mine and I finally got real with God. I grew up quasi-Christian, so this experience was the closest one to a conversion I have.
But that was just the warm-up for a major attack from Satan the next year.

Mitch and the unpardonable sin
I was working at a Christian bookstore and this homeless man named Mitch would come into the store. The man was probably in is late 50s or early 60s, and he always had something negative to say when he came into the store.
He didn't like how the store was "selling the Gospel," which was meant to be free. He didn't like how Christian artists were masquerading as rock stars preaching inaudibly or not preaching at all in their music. He didn't like all of the "shallow" Christian products such as car fishies, T-shirts and bracelets.
Looking back, I can't say that I disagree with him on a lot of his points. But there was something about him that made me uncomfortable at the time — and I'm not sure what it was.
Perhaps it was the negativity (despite its truth). There was something about him that whenever we'd talk, it made me feel that I wasn't right with God — that God wasn't happy with me and was like an angry parent.
I was uncomfortable, and one day I had enough. I was working one evening in the back of the store, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Mitch come through the door. I immediately bolted to the upstairs employee area, leaving my post in the music department.
Another employee was there, and when I sat down, she asked, "What's wrong?"
I told her that I was hiding from Mitch, that I just couldn't deal with him anymore. She asked me why, and I responded — and I'll never forget this — "Because he gives me this creepy feeling; like something demonic."
Even as I write this, it brings shivers down my spine.
I got back to my apartment later that evening, and was reading the Bible on the toilet when I came across Mark chapter 3, which includes Jesus' words about the unpardonable sin. In that scene, Pharisees accuse Jesus of having a demonic spirit, to which he says — and this is my translation — "You can say whatever you want about me, but if you blaspheme the Holy Spirit, you've blown it."
I immediately thought of Mitch. My heart started pounding.
My girlfriend, Savannah (who later became my wife), was visiting and when I came out of the bathroom, I was in tears, breathing heavily, sweating. I told her what I read and that I needed to talk to someone immediately.
I called my childhood pastor, who calmly told me that Jesus was speaking in continuous tense, not a one-time thing. But the devil had his hold on me.
I felt just as I did as 12-year-old, but instead of worrying about living forever, I was worried about dying forever, being cast off from God because of shooting my mouth off about a homeless man. I never meant to curse God, yet I felt I had done so beyond repair.
I lived in a private hell hotter and more horrible than any before, and any since.
Every day, I felt I was getting closer to my inevitable place in Hades. I had burdened my girlfriend enough about it, and I felt as if my pastor was annoyed when I talked to him about it.
So I just kept it inside.
Eventually, it ate at my so much that I could barely do anything. I'd just sleep all the time. I wanted to die, but I knew I couldn't because of what I thought came next (thank God for that).
I was going to a college men's Bible study every week, but I kept my fears to myself because I thought that if I told my brothers in Christ was I was going through, they'd tell me I was crazy, or worse, "Yep, you're doomed."
But one day, as I was headed to Bible study, I felt the Lord clearly say to me, "Tell them tonight." The same fears rose to the surface and I fought that still, small voice.
I was sweating and shaking throughout Bible study that night. Do you know that feeling, when the Holy Spirit wants to you do something, but you're fighting it? You physically feel horrible.
I caved, and it was one of the best decisions I'd ever made. The guys — including a pastoral student who knew a lot more about the Word than I — took me under their wing and assured me, with scripture and wisdom, that the fact I was worried about hurting God proved I wasn't a lost cause.
I emerged from that battle stronger than ever, and worship took on new meaning as I praised God for saving all of us from the despair, hopelessness and horrors of hell.

Interview with the paranoid
But three years later, as a 22-year-old cub reporter out at the Oregon Coast, another attack would cut me down to size.
Bill was the kind of guy with whom you couldn't just have a two-minute conversation. He was brash, domineering and opinionated. He'd take over a conversation so fast, reroute it and drive it into the ground before you could get your first sentence out.
Unfortunately, he was also a former City Councilor whose opinion I needed for a story.
One day, I met Bill at his house to get a few quotes on my way home. Well, our conversation about politics in a small coastal town brought me to my first major encounter with esoteric information (yep, more conspiracy theories) since Lori.
He preached about how the globalist elite behind our government is working to shred our constitution, begin World War III and kill off 90 percent of the population. He told me about how the heads of our society go to California every year to worship some Canaanite idols and pledge their allegiance to Satan and whatnot.
As someone trained to give every bit of information consideration until it's proven false, I was deeply, deeply disturbed. After our talk I drove home silent and without the quote I had gone to obtain.
Bill, who was deeply paranoid, sent me links to some Web sites that really made me think — ever seen "Loose Change"? — but more than that, they made me fear. They made me like Bill. And that fear crippled me.
I could hardly work. I was again consumed with fears of the future. I'd hole up in my room and watch television (mostly the World Series of Poker) for hours on end to numb the pain and the dread.
I told my wife about it, and she would either try to disprove what Bill or the Web sites had claimed, or would get angry that the devil was beating the crap out of me. So I kept it inside, again, to not worry her.
But, as before, that isolation ate away at me, and I could no longer eat or drink. I couldn't hardly work. I'd think about how I was going to die day in and day out, and my life was hell.
Not only that, but the devil had decided to dredge up my fears from college, the ones about Mitch. He used whatever he could find in my subconscious.
We had only lived at the Oregon Coast for several months, and hadn't yet found a church of our liking. I had done an article on one particular church in the midst of my crisis, but that was as close to having a home church as I was at the time.
That was enough for me.
Finally, realizing that I had come to the end of me, and recognizing that the enemy was incapacitating me, I had to talk to someone, so I called the associate pastor of the church and talked to him, being completely honest with what was going through my head.
He told me that God doesn't want us to worry about tomorrow, and that even if things do get bad in the future, He is for us, so who can be against us?
Talking to Pastor Dave was a major victory in that battle, and after some time, I felt myself returning to normal, psychologically. Spiritually, I again, felt stronger than before and I felt that I had "woken up" to a lot of truth in the world.
But of course, three years later, Satan would attack again.

Today's attack
That attack is going on as I write today. The fear is surging through my soul, flowing beneath the surface of everything I do. And, as you'd guess, it's about me being afraid of the future again.
I didn't even need Bill to set me off this time. Ever since the episode at the coast, I've been known to look up esoteric information from time to time, thanks to that need-to-know reporter nature I mentioned earlier.
So when I saw "stop the Portland nuke!" as a headline on a local esoteric blog site, I couldn't just click back over to MySpace. I had to look, which sent me down the rabbit hole of fear and trembling I'd been to so many times before.
There was a military/Homeland Security exercise in our town for a week in August, which simulated some sort of major disaster in the Portland area. Conspiracy theorists were screaming Paul Revere-style, saying that they believed this drill would "go live," and that some sort of bomb would be set off in our area that week.
I stumbled upon this information just three days before this drill was to begin. I panicked. I called my father, who didn't do much to quell my alarm, because he too was alarmed. That didn't help.
I stewed on it for a couple days, but the day before I started wearing a sweatshirt (in the heat of summer) to block nuclear fallout, I told my wife what I was dealing with. I'd learned enough in my previous crises that I had to tell someone what was going on right away. She got angry at the devil again, and urged me not to think about it. That strategy never works with me, but I can understand her frustration and the wisdom of what she was saying.
Needless to say, Portland survived the week, but in the meantime I either looked up more esoteric information, or it found me through e-mails and MySpace posts. Satan was out to incapacitate me.
That brings me to today — a week after the drill ended.

Taken captive
I struggle with being afraid of the future. Every time I hear a siren, every time I see a soldier, every time I read the news, I'm reminded of the direction this world's headed.
I look at children, and wonder to how many years they'll live. I look at buildings like hospitals and grocery stores, and picture them completely abandoned. I picture Nazi-like death squads marching down the main street of our small mountain town. I drink water and wonder how long I'll have access to life essentials. I picture myself, my wife and my yet-to-be-born son either hiding somewhere like Anne Frank or fleeing to the forest.
My mind is a veritable cinema of post-Apocalyptic, dystopian chaos and terror. And I recognize it. I suppose that's the first step.
I've learned that the point of these episodes has never been whether the information I'm fretting about is true. My "conspiracy theories" could be completely true, some could be true or none could be true — that's not the point.
The point is, what am I doing with what I know (or claim to know)? Am I dwelling on it? Am I getting closer to God with it? Am I psychologically paralyzed? Am I a slave to fear?
God's Word urges us to "take every thought captive to the lordship of Christ" (2 Corint. 10:5). He tells us to "fear not" more than any other command in the Bible, and instructs us not to worry about tomorrow (Matthew 6:34), that He'll provide for our needs (also in Matthew chapter 6), that He cares about what happens to us (1 Peter 5:7) and that He has a plan and a future for us (Jeremiah 29:11).
I struggle with this, but I realize my struggle comes from a different fear, a fear of not being in control. I can't control what happens in this world. I can't control what happens to my family. I can't control what anyone else is doing. All I can control is whether or not I'm giving my life to God, whether I'm trusting Him alone with my life and whether I'm taking every day one at a time, since "tomorrow has enough troubles of its own" .

The truth is…
But right now, I'm fueled by fear, as I said before. I'm realizing it's an undercurrent of almost every one of my motivations, and it's not just a fear of a totalitarian, genocidal future.
I'm afraid that I won't be liked if I speak words of life to my unbelieving friends and co-workers. I'm afraid I'll never accomplish all the Lord has set out in front of me. I'm afraid of how I'll raise my son. I'm afraid that I have no true friends outside of my wife and family.
Satan loves to isolate me. I'm in a men's group now that has taught me so much about the devil's tricks and traps. In every one of my episodes throughout my life, he managed to find a fear, make me feel crazy to the point that I isolate, and stab me over and over with his dagger of doom.
He's told me that when it all goes down, I'll be all alone, and I'll be helpless. Then he'll add that when I finally meet my horrific end, it will mark my grand entrance into Hell (since I committed the unpardonable sin way back in college). His tricks never get old.
But this time around, I've really made an effort to be open with others about this personal struggle. I've surrounded myself with people who will pray for me — my wife the mightiest of the prayer warriors — and who will talk this stuff through with me.
It's not to say that my greatest fears won't be realized someday. I still think they may be… I've got a lot of years left until I could naturally expire.
But I've heard somewhere that God's greatest joy is seeing a human fully alive. That means living in peace, joy and fellowship with Him. I want to achieve that now and in every situation, and I'm working on it. He is greater than all of this, and I want to worship Him by fully indulging myself in the fruits of the Spirit.
The fact that Satan has made it his personal goal to incapacitate me with fear has taught me that fear is my Achilles heel, but it's also encouraged me with the fact that I must somehow be important in the spiritual domain to have such a target on my head.
I'm sure many of you who call upon the name of the Lord and feel a divine purpose within you have experienced attacks of similar weight and frequency.
See them for what they are — a fallen angel's attempt at keeping you from all God has for you: the joy, the fulfillment and the accomplishments that have been planned for you since before the beginning of the world.
I'm still grasping to own that perspective.