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A study was conducted about fear and its impact on us. Heart rate monitors were attached to people who had never jumped out of a plane. The result was that almost everyone had a faster heart rate the moment before jumping out of the plane and then a much lower heart rate once they were out of the plane and falling to the ground.
How ironic. Your heart is pumping out of your chest while standing in a perfectly good airplane and then back to steady while you're falling to the earth!
The fact is we exemplify this result thousands of times in our lives. We are anxious or fearful during the simple contemplation of an act and then we are fine once the decision has been made. Fear is simply an illusion of reality. It is a distortion we create in our minds often with little to no justification.
Mel Brooks gave us the famous saying, "Hope for the best, expect the worst." Why not expect the best? Why not set aside the fear and move straight to reality by never letting fear prevent us from reaching the reality.
“Don't fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are Mine.”
Isaiah 43:1
God commands us not to fear. "Fear not" is used over 80 times in the bible. Fear is a tool of the devil to strip us of our hope and limit our victories. The same fear can be prevalent on a team and it is contagious.
It begins with doubts about your own abilities, which spreads to doubts about those of your teammates and then manifests itself into some over heightened sense of the opponents abilities.
That is why I like Yoda, "Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you, hmm? And well you should not, for my ally is the Force."
God is our force and a powerful ally he is but to unleash this power you must be willing and able to set aside your fear and trust in the Lord.
Every day (and if possible multiple times a day) face your fears. Turn away from anything that might enter your mind and dissuade you from taking a leap of faith. Set aside any and all belief you are not capable of achieving a goal and move forward with action.
Be prudent, don't tape feathers to your arms and jump off buildings! Conversely, do not stand still and watch others capitalize on opportunities you can achieve. In life, rarely will someone push you out of the plane. More often than not they will be jumping out and pulling the ripcord closer to earth so as to reach the solid ground first.
