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I Will Not Fear from Refreshing Hope Ministries on Vimeo.

When God calls you to do something, fear is usually the first guardian you will encounter if you manage to overcome laziness and procrastination. It is so important to press on even though we are afraid of what may happen.

In 1 Samuel, young David had a calling on his life to become the next King of Israel. Samuel had anointed him, but David's path was lined with fear guardians of increasing difficulty. Before David became king, he would fight against lions, bears, giants, and armies (1 Samuel 17:36-37).

Facing fear was part of David's training, and the beautiful part was that through these trials, David learned to trust the Lord one milestone at a time. The Lord kept raising the bar.

(1 Samuel 17:37 NKJV) Moreover David said, "The LORD, who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, He will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine..."

David found a successful strategy: "Show up and do the work." It doesn't have to be perfect, but it has to be done. The Lord will take care of the details. We get it done not by our might or power but by His Spirit (Zechariah 4:6). And we don't let fear stop us.

(Psalm 118:6 NKJV) The LORD is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me?

Fear can appear in so many ways, but the goal is always the same: To stop you from trying. Many people want to write a book, but the fear of someone reading it stops them on page one. Many want to write a song, but what people may think stops them before they begin. If they do, they won't put it out there for anyone to hear because they have been rendered useless by fear.

How can God use you if you won't let Him? Why would He put gifts in your life that you won't use? Do you think He will give you more? In (Matthew 25:14–28), Jesus told a parable about a man who gave money to three servants to invest while he was away. Two of them doubled what he gave them, but the third one was afraid and buried his talent in the ground. The Lord called him "wicked and lazy" and took away his talent and gave it to the one who had ten (Matthew 25:26-28).

The Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy and told him this in his second letter:

(2 Timothy 1:6–7 NKJV) Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

Paul had laid his hands on Timothy and prayed for him, and God had given Timothy spiritual gifts, possibly prophecy, the word of knowledge, like those that are listed in (1 Corinthians 12:8-10). But Timothy was apparently hesitant to use them; maybe he was not as bold as Paul. Not many are.

Paul was once preaching in a town when the crowd got angry, formed a mob, stoned him, then dragged him out of town and left him for dead. After some disciples gathered around him and prayed, Paul got back up, dusted himself off, and went back into town (Acts 14:19). That was some serious boldness. Paul urged Timothy not to let fear hold him back because he knew it would try to.

Fear is the guardian of the treasure chest. Anytime that God has something good in store for you, there will be a fear to overcome. If you want to be used by God, then you will have to face those fears. It's OK because He will be with you, and that's what makes it work.

(Isaiah 41:10 NKJV) Fear not, for I am with you; Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.'

Fear was in the air when David walked out to meet Goliath, in the furnace of fire when Shadrach stood on the edge, and in the lion's den when Daniel was thrown in with them. Peter walked on the water while eleven others stayed in the boat. The same could be said for Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Jonah, and Elijah, but they all overcame their fear and lived their destiny.

"Fear Not" is a very common theme in scripture. The phrases "Do not fear" or "Fear not" occur 62 times in the New King James version of the Bible:

I can tell you from experience that God will put you in scary situations to teach you to depend on Him. When computers used only a command prompt and no one had the Internet, the Lord began to push me into my own computer repair business. He first removed my day job and gave me a burning desire to work on computers.

Since I was a kid, I have been fascinated by computers, but the Lord didn't give me a computer. Instead, I began attracting spare parts like a magnet: a motherboard here, some RAM there, and a power supply. After work, I would stay out in the garage until two in the morning, playing with the parts, assembling them in various configurations, and overclocking them until I had created the fastest build possible.

For example, I learned that Intel once manufactured only one processor but sold it at various speeds. The fastest speed costs over twice as much as the slowest. They used only one pin to limit the processor's speed. So, you could paint it with fingernail polish and instantly turn the slowest chip into the fastest one sold.

I couldn't afford a proper computer case, so my first computer was housed in a cardboard box. I cut holes in the front for the two floppy disk drives and a power switch and drew some decorations on it with a magic marker.

Networked computers were especially rare then, and most people living in the country had never seen one. Since I didn't have a hub, I created a network by hacking a cable and rearranging the wires to form a crossover. This allowed two computers to communicate, and I was fascinated by how data was transferred over copper wire with such accuracy.

Then came the Wild West era of the Internet. People used dial-up modems with no firewall, and Windows security features were pathetic. You could simply type "NET USE N: \\xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx\C$" and browse someone's entire hard drive.

As word of my computer hobby began to spread, the Lord began to have businesses call me and ask me to come help them. They would somehow get my number from a friend of a friend and tell me they had no one else to call. "Please just come look at it!"

There was always the fear of failure, and I would want to tell them, "I can't help you. " But while they were speaking, I would hear the Holy Spirit whisper, "Go, and I will go with you." If I would only go, He would guide me through the rest. There was always resistance, screaming, "You can't do this!" in my ear. I would often pray all the way there.

It was my trembling hands doing the work, but it was His Holy Spirit providing the answers. It was a golden time when it seemed that I could not fail, and sometimes, simply touching the computer would fix it. The more I learned, the more He increased the difficulty of the challenges that came. He kept raising the bar just as He did with David. Soon, I was dealing with corrupted networked databases and eventually load-balancing mail Linux server farms.

It was much the same with music: overcoming the fear of playing in front of crowds and public speaking. Yet, these things prepared me for what we are doing now. Today, we use the computer skills, programming, music, sound, and video equipment experience, and the time that I spent in Bible College, all here at Refreshing Hope every day. And I can tell you that fear was there at every point along the way, trying to stop me from doing this.

The Lord is behind us like a Coach, pushing us forward, pointing out opportunities, and encouraging us to trust Him. If you want to fulfill your destiny, then you cannot let fear hold you back. It comes in so many types: fear of failure, fear of man, fear of what someone might think. But the purpose is always the same: to paralyze you. Moses told Joshua this:

(Deuteronomy 31:7–8 NKJV) Then Moses called Joshua and said to him in the sight of all Israel, "Be strong and of good courage, for you must go with this people to the land which the LORD has sworn to their fathers to give them, and you shall cause them to inherit it. And the LORD, He is the One who goes before you. He will be with you, He will not leave you nor forsake you; do not fear nor be dismayed."

When Joshua entered the Promised Land, there was fear at every turn, but he was to press on anyway. The Lord told him that He would give him every inch of ground that he set his foot on, but if Joshua didn't go, then he didn't get anything. So don't let fear keep you from trusting God and rob you of your destiny.

You can pray this with me if you like:

Prayer: Heavenly Father, please help me overcome fear in my life. Protect me from deception, give me a clear vision, and help me make the right decisions. I put my trust in You. My life is Yours. In the name of Jesus Christ, I pray. Amen.