No Longer A Slave to Fear

Slave to Fear

If you attended church on Sunday, I’m going to go out on a limb and  guess you sang “No Longer Slaves“. Let’s be honest, there’s like a 99% chance you did.

My church sure did. But wow, it was powerful. Men and women, hands raised, belting out truth and confessing, “I’m no longer a slave to fear. I am a child of God.” Considering the cultural climate and our current events, there is a lot to be fearful of in this day.

As we stood there side-by-side, singing in unison, I started thinking about the times I’ve been most fearful in my life.

There have been two seasons in my life were I was truly crippled with fear. It was a constant daily battle.The first was a summer where my dad was going through major surgery and I was absolutely terrified he was going to die. Years later, the same crippling fear returned, but this time it was over my husband.  For months, my mind would continually imagine my husband’s death. I would be overwhelmed with the impending fear that God would take him from me suddenly.  Or sometimes it would even be imagining his death when we are old and gray.  Either way, it was as if I had no control over the thoughts my mind was dwelling upon and fear would totally consume my body. I was a nut case.

After blogging about both seasons, I heard from waves of women who struggled with the same thing. Fearing the unknown, things that are irrational, things that are inevitable but beyond our control.


There’s another song we sing a lot  in church these days: Good Good Father.

I think this song so heavily connects with the church body, because so many of us have really complicated relationships with our own earthly fathers. We need to be reminded over and over that our Heavenly Father is a good father to remove the dark shadows our own dads have cast over our Perfect One.

My sister-in-law and one of her best friends often joke that they have the easiest time trusting in God’s provisions and answers to prayer because their earthly dads practically never said no to them. I mean, they were good dads– so obviously they said no when it was in the best interest of their daughter, but overall these girls grew up like PRINCESSES in the kingdom provided by their dads. They now laugh talking about how incredible their earthly dads are, and how that has made them beyond confident that their HEAVENLY DAD will take care of them in an even more perfect and radical way.

As we sang,

“I’m no longer a slave to fear. I am a child of God.”

I thought about my sister in law and her bestie, and how they were so deeply rooted in their identity as a child of God, a daughter of the Creator of the Universe.

I was reminded that every time I start to fear, I’m ultimately not trusting my Good and Perfect Father. I am forgetting He is Sovereign all the time. I’m forgetting He is Good. ALL THE TIME. I am forgetting that He promised to work all things out for my good.


There is so much to be afraid of right now. So much to fear.

But you and I are not slaves to fear. We are Children of the Most High God. And He is in control. He has a great story in the works. And He has already won the battle. You and I just have to remind ourselves of those truths over and over.  We have to stand firm in that truth, even with our knees knocking.