Fear

Fearless by Max Lucado is a book I recently finished reading.

On a more personal note, earlier in the book he writes a little about the Chinese culture. Growing up in a traditional Chinese home, I reflect that I do not recall my father, who is still living, ever saying an encouraging word to me EVER. When I saw this written in the book, it struck such a profound deep cord in me, that knowing billions of other Chinese people also live with the same lie that if you encourage someone, that is a bad thing, as it creates a weak person.

So, in order to create a strong, tough person, berating, belittling them show s that you really love them. What a bunch of bull!

Having a lack of encouragement and the overall Chinese culture has instilled such great fear in me, that it's taken many years of professional psychological therapy, lots of prayer, encouragement from others, reading, learning, application of what I've learned to break through many of those fears and realize they are just lies. Being that I'm an adult, my parents really did the best they could with what they knew. Afterall, it made them "tough" and successful, so why wouldn't it work on me?

It's worked for many people, maybe even billions. However, it did not work for me.

Fear is manifested in so many different ways. When there is fear, there is the absence of love because the Bible says that perfect love (the love that comes from God) casts at all fear. It doesn't just leave some fear behind but it casts it all out, throws it off. No more attachments or remnants. It's gone.

Fear manifests itself in so many different ways: anger, procrastination, blaming, laziness, complacency, overeating, addictions, control issues, depression -- just to name a few.

One of the things I'm learning about fear is that identifying it and taking responsibility that I let it into my life (regardless of the means). It's not real. More about this later.