Your body’s response isn’t triggered by the actual threat. It’s controlled by what you believe about the threat.
My family has a weekday morning devotional call. A few weeks ago, the topic was fear.
While I was preparing the message I would share related to the topic, I came across the definition of fear. Not the emotional one but the clinical, physiological definition.
Fear is an innate, survival mechanism triggered by the perception of an immediate, present threat. Your brain’s threat center (the amygdala) instantly activates when it perceives danger. Adrenaline surges. Heart rate spikes. Blood rushes to your muscles. Your body prepares to fight, flee, or freeze.
If your body believes you can overpower the threat, its posture is fight. If your body believes you can’t overcome the danger but can outrun it, it goes into flight. And if your body doesn’t think you can fight or flee and you feel stuck in place, that’s freeze.
The part that stood out to me was that the body’s response isn’t triggered by the actual threat. Your fear response is controlled by what you believe about the threat.
And not only does it tell us what we believe about the threat, our fear response also tells us what we believe about ourselves. What we believe we are capable of relative to the threat in front of us.
1 Samuel 17 tells the story of David and Goliath.
The Israelite army saw a giant they couldn’t defeat. Their belief: “He’s too big to fight. We’re too small to win.” So they froze. For 40 days, they stood paralyzed by fear.
David saw the same giant. But he believed something different: “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?”
Same giant. Different belief. Different response.
The army saw a giant too big to defeat. David saw a giant too big to miss.
David’s belief wasn’t based on his size, his experience, or his armor. It was based on God. “The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.”
David didn’t fight the giant because he believed there was no threat. He fought the giant because he believed he could overpower the threat.
What you believe about the threat and about yourself determines your response to fear.
And, if this is all based on beliefs, we can change it. Your mind can change. Your beliefs can shift.
Romans 12 says, “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” It doesn’t say “pray harder and hope the fear goes away.” Renew your mind. Change what you believe.
The point is to open a door for your mind that leads to an opportunity to think differently.
So when faced with fear, here’s what I’m doing after amen:
I’m collecting evidence. Fear thrives on assumptions. It loves vague, unexamined beliefs like “this always happens” or “I can’t handle this.” Sometimes our truth is as simple as something we’ve never bothered to question. So it’s not necessarily that we believe it, we’ve just never put it through a personal litmus test. We’ve never asked if there was evidence of this truth for us. So I’m writing down the facts. The actual evidence. The times the fear was wrong. The times I did handle it. The times God made a way.
I’m actively repeating new beliefs. Affirmations aren’t magic. But they can be effective by identifying the specific lie behind the fear, naming it out loud, and replacing it with truth. Daily. Repeatedly. Until the new belief becomes louder than the old one.
I’m aligning my habits with the belief I want to hold. If I say I believe God is bigger than the giant, but I’m living like the giant is inevitable, my actions are reinforcing the lie. So I’m asking myself: what would I do if I actually believed this new thing? And then I’m doing it. Even when it feels uncomfortable.
Consider the old saying “You can do anything you put your mind to.” There’s a reason the saying is “anything you put your mind to” and not “anything you say” or “anything you daydream about.” Putting your mind to something is believing it. It is having a belief about something that, while it may not be absent of fear, believes you can overcome what you fear. And once you’ve put your mind to it (or your belief to it), you’re 80% of the way there.
I wonder…
- What fear are you facing right now? Name it. What specific fear has you in fight, flight, or freeze mode?
- What do you believe about that giant? Is it too big to fight? Too powerful to overcome? Inevitable?
- What does your fear tell you about what you believe about yourself? Do you believe you’re too inexperienced? Too weak? Not capable enough?
- What’s the new belief you need to put your mind to? Write it as an affirmation. “God is bigger than _____. He has equipped me to _____. I am capable of _____.” Say it out loud. Repeat it until it becomes louder than the old one.
I love you.
Coi Marie
Affirmations:
My fear is controlled by what I believe. And I can change what I believe.
The giants in my life look different when I change what I believe.
I’ve put my mind to it. I’ve put my belief to it. I’m 80% of the way there.
