The Mindset Shift of Faith Over Fear

[00:00:10] Well, welcome back. [00:00:12] I am so glad that you decided to come back. [00:00:16] Yes. I didn't wait nine months this time to release another episode. [00:00:22] And I don't know if you noticed this or not, but I did add, I tweaked my title a little bit. I'm calling this Grace and Grit Mindset Podcast. [00:00:35] Want to bring a little more clarity to what I'm trying to do and, and who I'm talking to. [00:00:41] So this episode is the first in a series of EP episodes where I'm going to be talking about shifting your mindset. So this one is called the Mindset Shift of Faith Over Fear. [00:00:57] I don't know how many of you can relate to fear just being constantly afraid of things. I have spent a good part of my life just being afraid. [00:01:11] And I used to think that it was just like a personality trait, like I was just born afraid, you know. [00:01:17] But after a lot of counseling, a lot of therapy, a lot of medication, a lot of rest, reflection and prayer, and of course, getting to know God, I have come to realize that fear is not a part of our personality. [00:01:33] We might be more prone to give into it, but it's not really a part of someone's personality. It's a response. It's a learned behavior that we can find ourselves in, especially if we have endured some trauma in our life, which was the case with me. And some, some things that I went through when I was younger, when I was a kid, you know, and just some bullying that I had to endure when I was in second or third grade that really, really traumatized me. And, you know, you don't think that that stuff is going to affect you long term, but it ends up like shaping your entire life. [00:02:15] And like I said a minute ago, you end up kind of incorporating this fear into your personality and you're kind of like, known as the person who's always afraid of everything. [00:02:26] And so I became that girl who was always afraid. I was always afraid of hurting myself physically because I did fall down a lot. [00:02:35] I was always afraid of. As I got older, it became more about relationships, getting hurt. [00:02:42] I was always afraid of financial woes, which have been kind of a. An ongoing challenge in my life. Finances, as most of us probably are enduring that right now. [00:02:54] I became afraid of waiting for the, the shoe to. Other shoe to drop. Have you, have you found yourself in that place where you're always thinking, okay, what's, what's. What else is going to happen? You know, because you live in this perpetual state of always. [00:03:11] Something bad is always happening to you and you start to kind of get into this victim mentality all the time. And so I lived in that for so long. [00:03:21] I would say, even up until the past few years, have I really turned the corner. [00:03:27] And I believe that's one of the reasons God wants me to share this podcast and these words and some other things I'm working on as a resource to other people to help. To help you, because I know what this feels like, to live in fear and constant anxiety about the neck, you know, the next bad thing that's coming around the corner, and it really makes it to where you can't even enjoy your life at all because you're. You're always like, well, yeah, today might be okay, but what's coming tomorrow? Because, like, it's going to be terrible. It's going to be awful. And of it was because of some choices I made when I was younger and, you know, the relationships that I was in, specifically one in particular, that there was a lot of lying going on. There was a lot of. I was being lied to a lot and gaslighted and brainwashed and made to feel like I was crazy for. For thinking things or believing things that were absolutely true. I mean, I don't know if you've been in those kind of relationships, but, you know, you can be victimized by someone who. Who wants to live in an addiction or they're trying to hide something, that kind of thing. So that went on for years in my life, and it really. [00:04:52] It really messed me up, you know, And I started to feel like, okay, so it must be like a godly thing to always be afraid. [00:05:02] How warped is that to, like, to actually think that it's okay to always be afraid? [00:05:07] But I started to feel like that's just, you know, maybe God's way of warning me is I would get afraid. And then I'm like, okay, then something bad must be coming, so I need to, like, prepare myself for this awful thing that's coming and that just really, really became a miserable existence. So I. I don't know if you can relate. I hope not. But you probably can if you're listening to this podcast, because you pro struggle with mindset. So I just want to share with you some scripture today, and I want to share with you some ways or some things that can help you overcome it. And it's going to be in the mindset shift that you have to make, okay? Because God cannot change your mind for you. [00:05:49] He can present you with the truth. He can present you with solutions, but you have to make the choice of what do you want to believe. [00:06:00] And I am. [00:06:02] I'm called a certified belief therapist. So I have, like, this certification in a specific type of Christian counseling that is done under a ministry umbrella. I want to be very clear about that. It is not a licensing situation. [00:06:17] I'm not a licensed professional counselor. This is a ministry type of counseling. And what I do with people and have done in the past is I help them identify what. [00:06:29] What faulty or what lies or incorrect things that they're believing that are shaping their behaviors. You know, like, let's get to the bottom of why you have anxiety. Let's get to the bottom of why you're depressed. [00:06:44] Let's figure out what it is that you're believing in your core belief system and address it there. And I believe that that's. That's the key, and that's what God wants to do with us, is he wants to say, okay, you're just so busy treating the symptom of being. [00:06:59] Just trying to mask it with medication and not saying medication is bad. Please don't misunderstand me. [00:07:06] Talk to your doctor, all that stuff about that. But what I am saying is it doesn't do a whole lot of good to just take medication and not deal with it at the root level, like the cause of it. And so with fear, which really, anxiety is driven by fear, right? [00:07:25] So a lot of people just try to tackle anxiety, but really they need to look at what am I afraid of? And then when you get into the what am I afraid of? Then it's like, well, what lies am I believing? Because here's the truth, and this is where I want to go today with you is the Bible teaches us that we're not supposed to be afraid of anything if we're believers. [00:07:48] God has conquered everything. [00:07:50] There is never a situation where he does not already have the solution. There's never a battle he hasn't already won. [00:07:58] There's never anything you can go through that he hasn't already made a way. [00:08:03] But we get so scared, and we get so trapped in these moments of just fear where we can't even think straight. You know what I mean? And so I wanted to dive into second Timothy one, chapter one. And I'm gonna. I just want to give you a little bit of a backdrop first before I jump in here and just say really quick, when you read second Timothy, what you have to remember, or even just maybe you don't know this, because I don't know that I really knew it either. But when Paul's Writing this, he's writing to Timothy and Timothy was like a son to him. He had raised him up. He had kind of like sent him off into the ministry to start this like pastoring thing that he was doing where he was. And then Paul is, you know, traveling around, doing his thing. Well, he gets imprisoned and this is the last time that he's imprisoned in Rome. So he's writing this book to Timothy and, and this is going to be the last time that he ever writes to him. And this, this, his death occurred not long after this book was written. And that's super important because when you look at the things that Paul says to him, you're like, oh my gosh, I, I, I have a better perspective of why this matters so much. So I just want to read this to you really quick. He's just encouraging Timothy and I want to do that for you to encourage you to not be afraid. So I'm going to start with chapter two, I'm sorry, second Timothy, chapter one, just right at the beginning. And this is in the Passion translation, so it's a little bit more modernized and poetic. It says, from Paul, an apostle of Jesus, the Messiah, appointed by God's pleasure to announce the wonderful promise of life found in Jesus, the anointed Messiah. [00:09:52] My beloved son, I pray for a greater release of God's grace, love and total well being to flow into your life from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ. [00:10:04] You know, I love this. He's reminding him, you know that I've been called to serve the God of my fathers with a clean conscience. Night and day. I pray constantly for you, building a memorial for you with my prayers. [00:10:16] I know that you have wept for me, your spiritual father, and your tears are dear to me. Remember, he's in prison. [00:10:23] I can't wait to see you again. I'm filled with joy as I think of your strong faith that was passed down through your family line. [00:10:31] It began with your grandmother Lois, who passed it on to your dear mother Eunice. And it's clear that you too are following in the footsteps of their godly example. [00:10:42] You have such an amazing legacy of believers. These two women that, that were his mother and grandmother were so strong in the faith. And he's reminding them. And then he says, I'm writing to encourage you to fan into a flame and rekindle this fire of the spiritual gift God imparted to you when I laid my hands upon you, which I love that because now you're talking about, hey, is it biblical to actually lay hands on somebody and pray for them. Yes, here it is, right in front of you. [00:11:12] For God will never listen to me. God will never give you the spirit of fear, but the Holy Spirit, who gives you mighty power, love and self control. [00:11:26] So never be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor be embarrassed over my imprisonment, but overcome every evil by the revelation of the power of God. [00:11:39] So he keeps going, but he's telling him, hey, I'm in prison. But I don't want you to be afraid because that fear that you're feeling is not from God. [00:11:50] That is not the spirit of God trying to warn you. That is not, don't listen to it. That is not the spirit that God has given you. He's given you through the Holy Spirit, a powerful spirit, full of love and a sound mind. [00:12:10] I love the way he says it here. [00:12:12] God will never give you the spirit of fear, but the Holy Spirit who gives you mighty power, love and self control. [00:12:20] So he really moves it out of being like, hey, you're not a victim. You're not a victim anymore. You are, you are powerful, you're mighty and you have self control. And you don't have to cave in to these feelings of being afraid all the time and thinking the worst. And I mean, yes, the outcome was that, that Paul does die, right? No, not too long after this he dies, but yet Paul still told him right before that, don't be afraid. [00:12:54] That's not the spirit of God. And I want to tell you today, and I want to remind myself too, that fear should have no place in our life. We have to learn to develop this posture of faith over fear. And that's the mindset shift that you have to make if you're going to move forward into a life that's full of, I would say, like joy. [00:13:20] I would say overcoming adversity. I would say doing the things that God's called you to do. What are the things that God's called you to do that if you weren't afraid, you would do them? [00:13:32] The things that you know he's put in your heart. [00:13:36] Because I guarantee the enemy is constantly coming against that. He does not want you to do those things. He wants you to be afraid. He wants you to believe that the other shoes gonna drop and even if you try to do it, it's not gonna work out. But I know I'm feeling that right now. I mean, I'm struggling every day with, okay, I'm gonna make, I'm gonna make the podcast again. This is like the 14th time I've tried To do something, you know, the enemy's like, yeah, you're gonna fail. You're gonna fail. [00:14:00] But I just have to make a decision to do it by faith. I think I alluded to this last week of living by faith, and I think that's a maturity level thing. Like, the. The longer you walk with God, the more you see his faithfulness, the more faith you have, because you keep seeing over and over how he always comes through, how he is always there, how he's always faithful, how he always makes a way, how he always turns everything for the good. I talked about that last week. If you didn't hear it, go back and listen to it. [00:14:35] From pain to purpose. He always turns everything for the good. [00:14:41] So this word that we see, that is fear. I want to look at this real quick. [00:14:50] For God does not give us the spirit of cowardice is what it says in the Greek. And that word is delaya. Dahlia. Sorry, Dahlia. [00:15:02] It means timidity, cowardice, fearfulness. It even kind of like, is this word picture of someone trembling. Like, just constantly trembling, constantly afraid. As a matter of fact, I have. [00:15:14] As I'm saying this, I'm thinking about my. [00:15:17] My dog. She is. I've had her. I think she's six. Yeah. And she has severe anxiety, and she's afraid of everything. And I can't even take her, like, out in my car somewhere. Her whole body shakes. We have to give her Prozac just to keep her kind of regulated. When the storms run, you know, zip through our area, thunderstorms, we have to give her other stuff just to keep her calm, because if we don't, she almost hyperventilates to the point that, like, I'm afraid she's gonna have a heart attack. [00:15:52] One time I took her with me to Arkansas, to our cabins up there. And she got so sick in the car, she threw up. [00:16:00] And so I thought, you know, she was going to be like my therapy dog. But I have ended up being her therapy human, I think, because she's afraid of everything in her body, is always trembling. And I'm picturing that when I'm seeing this spirit of fear that some of us carry around. [00:16:23] So I love. This is. This is a little bit of. From the topical lexicon. And I just love kind of reading the history of these words and kind of what they say. So I'm just pulling directly from it. [00:16:36] It's. It's used to describe a state of anxiety or dread. And these. [00:16:41] There are. There's not an exact equivalent Hebrew termination for this word delayah. But it, but there's some other words and they underscore the biblical theme of overcoming fear through faith and reliance on God. So the word delay is used in the New Testament to describe a spirit of fear or timidity that is not from God. It is not from God. It is contrasted with the spirit of power, love and self discipline that believers are encouraged to embrace. [00:17:10] The Greek term appears in the New Testament in context that emphasizes the importance of faith and courage in the Christian life. [00:17:20] It is significant in understanding the Christian call to courage. [00:17:24] Throughout Scripture, believers are encouraged to trust in God's strength rather than succumb to fear. And that's, that's the temptation right there, is it? You're encouraged to trust and it's not always a feeling. [00:17:36] Rather than succumb to the fear that feels so real. [00:17:41] So I'm not at all downplaying the fact that it feels so real when you're afraid. [00:17:49] You know, I mean, and there's a reason for that because you can, we can get really scientific or physiological about it, but what has happened is we have gotten into such a heightened state of anxiety that now we've triggered our fight or flight or freeze response. So we're living in fight, flight or freeze all the time. And we're not meant to. So literally all the time our body thinks something's trying to kill us or something is dangerous in our environment. [00:18:22] And because of that, it, it really kind of inhibits our ability to, to feel powerful. Right? Because now we feel threatened. [00:18:33] We feel threatened all the time. Threatened all the time. So really I think to approach this idea of, of a mindset shift where you actually choose to have faith over fear, you also have to not just approach this spiritually. And yes, of course, I think, number one, get into some scripture, dig into it like this and realize that the spirit of fear that you're feeling is not coming from God. See, I used to not believe that when people said that, be like, no, I really think this is, I think it's impending doom. I think something terrible is about to happen and I would live my life that way. And so what that did is it triggered more anxiety in me and, and that fight, flight or freeze response was constantly in overdrive, you know, and so of course bad things would happen. Sometimes I probably even brought them into existence because I was, it was like self fulfilled prophecy, you know. [00:19:27] But I think not just spiritually, do we have to really undergird our faith and learn how to, how to live in such a way where we choose Faith over fear, where we choose. [00:19:41] Faith over emotion, faith over the temptation to quit. [00:19:47] Faith. Faith has to be our number one. And we get to that place because we know him so well, right? Because we've had these encounters and he keeps proving himself over and over and over. Okay, that's number one. Number two, we also need to address this physiologically. [00:20:03] We need to really get our body out of this state of anxiety that's constantly in. And there are things that you can do that are very practical for that. [00:20:15] You know, your body needs to relax. It needs to know that it's safe. And what's interesting is when you do that, you can actually hear God better. [00:20:22] So most of the time, I know, and I think most people can either. We can't really hear God when we're in that panic state. [00:20:30] It's really hard to hear God. We have to. We have to be at rest. We have to almost be at peace. [00:20:36] I think that's why he says in Psalm 46, Be still and know I'm God, because he knows. And there's another translation. I think it's the passion. It says, surrender your anxiety. Surrender your anxiety to me and know I'm God. [00:20:50] You know, we have to learn how to be still and be quiet. And when we do that, when we still our mind, we get really quiet. [00:20:56] Maybe just breathe. I just want to start with the simplicity of breathing deeply. [00:21:01] And I want to just tell you about a situation. I'm not going to tell you all the details, but I'm just going to tell you. Last summer, as I was going through some terrible things that, you know, had to do with my marriage and some stuff we went through. And by the way, that podcast is going to be releasing in the next week or so, and you'll get you. If you want to hear all about that, you can. [00:21:24] It's not beautiful or anything like that. It's. It's really terrible. But when I was going through that last summer, I was in. I was in such a heightened state of anxiety, I couldn't hear the Lord. [00:21:39] And the only thing I knew to do, I was listening to this book, this audio book, and she was. She had gone through something just like what I was going through. And she said she'd gone to a counselor, and the counselor said, okay, here's what I want you to do. I want you to set your. [00:21:52] The timer on your phone or whatever for 20 minutes, and all I want you to do is breathe. That's it. Just breathe. [00:21:59] And, I mean, that sounds agonizing, right? Just thinking about it. So she said she did. And she was encouraging, you know, the readers to try it because it really changed her life. So I decided, okay, you know what? I couldn't hear the Lord. And I had to hear him. [00:22:16] I had to hear him. I was in a desperate situation where I needed his guidance, and I needed it right now. This wasn't a situation where I could let, like, wait for two or three weeks. [00:22:25] I needed to hear him or I was going to lose my mind. [00:22:29] And so I set my timer for 20 minutes, and I sat outside and I just breathed deeply for 20 minutes. And when I say breathe, I had like a. [00:22:40] I had, like a formula for it, or whatever you want to call it, because there's different ways to breathe, but I mean, deep breaths where you breathe in for four, you hold it for four, and then you exhale for four. So I did that for 20 minutes. And it was so hard because my body fought me. It wanted to do something. It wanted to run. I mean, I think if I could have described how I was feeling. I wanted to run. [00:23:05] You know, I wanted to escape what I was going through. But instead, I forced my body to just breathe. [00:23:13] And so as I'm breathing, I'm not really necessarily trying to hear God. I'm just breathing. So I'm focusing on counting as I'm breathing the N, four counts. Hold it. [00:23:25] Exhale, four counts. I'm actually literally saying that in my head, you know, so the timer goes off, and I'm like, I'm so relaxed. I thought I was just gonna pass out. [00:23:36] I thought I was gonna pass out. I was so relaxed. [00:23:39] It was the craziest feeling. I. I mean, I don't even feel that relaxed when I. When I go to bed at night. It was amazing. And so I came in the house and I sat down. [00:23:49] And immediately when I came in the house and just sat there, I heard the Lord so clearly speak to me. [00:23:57] And he gave me a specific word, and I knew it was him because it was a strange word. And there's no reason this word would have popped into my head. It was just like, what? And so I just heard this one phrase. [00:24:10] I was like, I don't even know if this is in the Bible. [00:24:13] I'm going to Google it. So I look it up, and there's. There's a scripture that literally has this phrase in it. So I. I look it up, I read it, and I'm like, oh, my gosh, he totally just answered me. [00:24:27] It was life changing. [00:24:30] It was exactly what I needed. [00:24:33] And I Think that is. [00:24:36] That is the component that we often miss is we need this spiritual from the Lord. [00:24:43] But the physiological. Our body, the way it's responding is in the way. And so we have to calm ourselves down so that we can hear Him. [00:24:52] And, you know, in that moment, I was somehow able to do it. And so I have kind of. I wouldn't say I do that every day where I breathe for 20 minutes, but I've learned how to just kind of get still before the Lord. As a daily practice, my husband and I do this. We'll. We'll pray in the morning together. We'll read. We're doing a study together. We'll read Scripture. [00:25:12] And, you know, at first it was like, okay, thank you, Jesus, for everything. Okay, goodbye. You know, and there was like, no, just sitting in his presence. So I've started trying to implement this thing where we set a timer for just a few minutes, and we just sit there and we just let the Lord like, do you want to show us something? Is there mentally, or is there something, a vision you want to give me? Is there a word you want to give me? And we're not, like, trying necessarily to get things from Him. It's more about, like, just meditating, closing your eyes, breathing, and just letting him take you wherever he wants to take you and getting still before Him. And so we have had great encounters with the Lord when we have given him the space to speak back to us. I think that's so much of the problem when we are in fear mode is all that we are hearing is the voice of the enemy or our own voice of fear. [00:26:08] And we're not. We're not giving space to the Lord to speak because we are so out of control physically. [00:26:17] And so I just want to throw that out there to you, that it's not just spiritual. Sometimes I think there literally is a spirit of fear that the enemy will try to put on you. [00:26:32] But sometimes I think it's. It's, you know, it's just a physiological thing that your body is responding to what you really believe. And if you really believe that you're in danger and maybe it's subconscious, maybe it's, you know, maybe you. You don't even realize you're thinking these negative thoughts. [00:26:50] But if you can slow yourself down enough and deal with the physiological component and let your body reset, then you'd be able to hear the Lord clearer. And faith would be a lot easier of a choice to make when you're in that place. Because, you know, not only are you disengaging the fight or flight part of the brain that wants to kind of take over. Because, you know, when we get into a situation where our life is threatened, that's our survival mode. Instinct kicks in. That's what saves us. Right. [00:27:23] But you can't live in that all the time. And so when you are in that and you find yourself in a. In a situation where you really need to have faith, but all you can think about is how afraid you are, then you're not accessing the part of your brain that God would honestly interact with you at, which is, you know, I think the, the frontal part of our brain. I mean, I'm not a scientist, I'm not a doctor. I. I don't know. But I can just tell you when I calm myself down, I'm able to think rationally, because rational thinking is, is not happening in the same place as this fight or flight response that we find ourselves in when we feel threatened. [00:28:02] And so I want to tell you, please, please, please, if you want to make this mindset shift of faith over fear. [00:28:10] Yes. Get into the scriptures, read this, study it like I just talked about with you. Read the scripture, put it up everywhere. You can find scriptures about having faith over fear. There's tons of them. I mean, you see them all throughout scripture. You know, I think, I think there's something like, like, do not be fear. Do not be afraid, like 365 times in the Bible. [00:28:33] I think I saw that somewhere because that's our tendency. But you need to approach it from different angles, like a more holistic way. [00:28:43] And so I hope that this helps you a little bit today, helps you kind of start to make that shift, you know, from faith to fear. And I just want to tell you today as well, to be on the lookout. Not only are my husband and I releasing another podcast that's joint, it's called the Marriage Altar for maybe people whose marriages are struggling, because that's where we were last year and God did a huge work in our lives and don't even feel like the same couple. [00:29:16] So we have that. But I am working on a resource right now that I really hope will be a benefit to some people. I'm going to be open, opening up some mindset coaching to people that want to work with me one on one. Maybe you struggle with this and you're so tired of struggling mentally with unhealthy, negative thought patterns. [00:29:40] I know that. I've been there and God has taught me over the last few years how to overcome. [00:29:47] And so I'm opening up a coaching program, if you will, one on one with people. Because I think, you know, I think a one on one when you're struggling like that is so good and so life changing that it works better. Well, and it works better in that setting than maybe a group setting at first. [00:30:10] So be looking for that. Tell you about it. Hey, also, go check out my website, shannonstrange.net I do have some blog posts up there, different things that can help you get through your week. And, you know, I just believe that if you want breakthrough in your, in your life, then you have, you have to start in your mind. [00:30:32] Your mindset has to change. [00:30:34] So I pray that you're blessed this week and I will see you next week.