Spirit of Fear

Hey! Being out here on my mission I have learned so many things. But there is one thing that has been pressing on my mind lately and I feel that I should share it.

There are influences all around us. Good and bad. It is up to us to choose what we want to focus on and how we want to react. Our loving Heavenly Father has given us the Holy Ghost to inspire and prompt us to do what is right. Everything that is good is of God. On the flip side...everything that is evil is of the devil. God gives us good and happy feelings. "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance..." (Galatians 5: 22-23). However, the spirit of Satan is the polar opposite of these words found in the New Testamant. The fruit of Satan's spirit is hate, depression, chaos, greed, aggressiveness, evil, doubt, pride, wildness. God does not give us feelings of doubt, hate, malice, etc. Things truly are light and dark. Good feelings are of God. Bad feelings are of the devil. "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind" (2 Timothy 1: 7). Through faith in Jesus Christ we develop faith in ourselves and our fellowmen. This allows our hearts to soften and to love. We will be given a sound mind and will receive power. Satan does NOT want this to happen. He will do anything to prevent this. He prevents it through fear.

My senior year of high school we were having a discussion on fear in my english class. A fellow classmate asked the question, "what is fear"? I thought about this as we discussed the topic and have thought about it since. Fear is the absence of faith. No one portrays the Satan's use of fear better than The Joker played by Heath Ledger in the classic movie, The Dark Knight. If you remember...The Joker is wreaking havoc on Gotham City. He isn't doing this through mass murders or nuclear bombs but he is doing it through FEAR. Doubt and fear are opposed to faith. The Joker describes himself as an agent of chaos and anarchy. He puts fear into the city and then the fear spreads until the entire city is in total chaos. They almost destroy themselves until hope and trust is re-introduced. From this, we can learn that if we fill ourselves with fear then it will spread to others and destruction may follow. We also can learn that we can save ourselves from fear with hope, faith, trust, and love.

Satan will do anything to bring us down. He will introduce fear and then influence us to a point where we are in a chaotic state. Fear leads to sin. Sin leads to despair. Despair IS chaos. Satan's influence is far reaching. He is extending his grasp to more and more areas and is bringing down more and more of us. We must fight this. The best way to combat Satan is to avoid him altogether. We must trust in our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. That leads us to trust in ourselves and help us be more confident.

One way that Satan destroys lives is through fear of falling down the social ladder. As we trust in God and put our struggles in the Lord's hands then we can be confident in ourselves to overcome the temptations that Satan throws at us. We can be strong when Satan tries to trick us through intimidation before a sports game in high school or a big test. We can stand tall when Satan tries to deceive us through peer pressure to drink alcohol, do drugs, live an immoral life, etc. We are strong (much stronger than Satan)! The devil tries to make us think that we are weaker than we really are. He wants us to be afraid and abandon hope. Satan can even influence us through scary movies. My counsel is...don't watch them! When we willingly subject ourselves to fear we fall prey to Satan.

When we surround ourselves with a good environment we are putting an armor of protection around us. We must read our scriptures, pray always, and be humble. Anything is possible if we have faith (Moroni 7: 33). We can and will win the battle against fear and Satan as long as we trust in God and rely on the Lord. Fight the spirit of fear with the Spirit of Light.