The Biggest Fear of All

Fear is a funny thing.

It comes in many shapes and forms. For instance, there’s the grizzly bear kind of fear that makes your heart pound and your breathing heavy. Sadly, this is me on airplanes. In my mind, death is imminent and there is no way to escape plunging 30,000 feet to the ground in a slow and terrifying death. I’m just one big mass of a billion scaredy-cat cells, all clenching their jaws and trembling, ready to panic at the next tiny bounce of the plane.

Then there’s the more frequent kind of fear- the termite kind of fear that eats away at you little by little and may even go unnoticed for a time, until one day you wake up and you feel like you’re falling apart. These fears come in different varieties- they’re regrets and insecurities, the lingering debris from heartaches of the past. We become so used to them that they silently dictate our actions and hold us back without us even realizing.

We all have fears like this, big scary ones, and small, less noticeable ones.

So as an exercise in the name of catharsis and brutal honesty, I decided to simply list all the things I could think of that I fear.

I fear death.
I fear being alone.
I fear being different.
I fear turbulence.
I fear hydroplaning while driving in the rain.
I fear getting fat.
I fear growing old.
I fear being laughed at.
I fear stretch marks.
I fear having children.
I fear not having children.
I fear getting cancer from processed food.
I fear getting cancer from pesticides.
I fear getting cancer from the sun.
I fear getting cancer from too much Splenda.
I fear losing a loved one.
I fear not fitting in.
I fear someone breaking into the house.
I fear getting my heart broken...again.
I fear being judged by others.
I fear pain.
I fear disappointing my parents.
I fear getting stuck in a job I don’t like.
I fear never finding my true calling.
I fear wrinkles.
I fear other people’s opinion of me.
I fear.
I fear.
I fear.
I fear.
I fear.

And yet, I would still say that I’ve left out the biggest fear of all.

Two years ago on my birthday, I received a simple birthday card from a friend. In it I found a quotation by the author Marianne Williamson that I would never forget:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are ALL meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people the permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Oddly enough, just recently I came across a similar quotation in a book I was reading. (And it’s just too good to not include in its entirety). In it, author Steven Pressfield identifies what he calls the Mother of all Fears, the Master Fear, the only real fear:

"The fear that we will succeed. That we can access the powers we secretly know we possess. That we can become the person we sense in our hearts we truly are. This is the most terrifying prospect a human being can face, because it ejects him at one go (he imagines) from all the tribal inclusions his psyche is wired for and has been for fifty million years. We fear discovering that we are more than we think we are. More than our parents/children/teachers think we are. We fear that we actually possess the talent that our still, small voice tells us. That we actually have the guts, the perseverance, the capacity. We fear that we truly can steer our ship, plant our flag, reach our Promised Land. We fear this because, if it’s true, then we become estranged from all we know. We pass through the membrane. We become monsters and monstrous. We know that if we embrace our ideals, we must prove worthy of them. And that scares the hell out of us. What will become of us? We will lose our friends and family, who will no longer recognize us. We will wind up alone, in the cold void of starry space, with nothing and no one to hold on to. Of course this is exactly what happens. But here’s the trick. We wind up in space, but not alone. Instead we are tapped into an unquenchable, undepletable, inexhaustible source of wisdom, consciousness, companionship. Yeah, we lose friends. But we find friends too, in places we never thought to look. And they’re better friends, truer friends. And we’re better and truer to them...”

Now, I don’t know if Mr. Pressfield is a spiritual man or not, but I think he explained our predicament with fear darn-near perfectly.

We mistake our self-loathing for humility. We settle for superficial relationships to avoid confrontation. We luxuriate in mediocrity, satisfied that our lives are identical to our neighbors’. We blindly accept the faith of our parents, friends and mentors, too lazy to pick up the Bible for ourselves.

We doubt our birthright as children of the Living God. We don’t really believe that we’re powerful beyond belief.

We fear the truth about who we are, because believing it means living up to it.

Believing who I really am means I can no longer remain comfortable, remain the same.

But what if that changed? What if today I stopped fearing? What if I allowed myself to live in the wonderful freedom of God’s love? What would change?

I’d take risks with no fear of failure.
I’d love abundantly with no expectation of being loved in return.
I’d just love for the simple sake of loving.
I’d passionately embrace and pursue the talents God has given me, uninterested in other’s opinions.
I’d slaughter comparison and burn its remains.
I’d have friendships that go deeper than hugs and a few tears.
I’d live wholly and completely in the moment- not fearing the uncertainties of the future, knowing that if I needed something God would supply it.
I’d be disciplined even when it’s hard because God has given me a limitless amount of strength.
I’d laugh when my plans tank, shrug my shoulders and say, “oh well.”
I’d go looking for challenges to overcome.
I'd trust the Spirit and take off running in the direction of its calling.
I’d unapologetically wear my love for Christ on my sleeve and tell absolutely everyone I could about His love with no fear of rejection or embarrassment.
I’d pray expecting miracles and transformations.

I’d bask in the knowledge that I am God’s child.

I’d be me, fearless.


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What do you fear? How would your life change if you let go of that fear?


“Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.
We love, because He first loved us.”

I John 4:15-19