Bob Newhart, in his classic comedy sketch, “Stop It!“, plays a psychologist who offers unusual therapy to his patients.  The patient in this particular sketch is a woman who expresses fear of being buried alive in a box. She laments that her fear is affecting, even debilitating, her in her day to day life – her ability to go through tunnels, to be in elevators, or even to be in other kinds of enclosed or “boxy” spaces. Newhart’s hilariously, insensitive, practical counsel: “Stop It!! You don’t want to go through life being scared of being buried alive in a box, do you? I mean, that sounds … frightening.”

Dan Allender, in The Cry of the Soul, describes fear:

Fear is like a manipulative con man, seeming like it only has your best interests at heart, but lies to us, and distorts the truth, and in the end warps our thinking, robs us of our understanding of reality.

Allender goes on to describe some of the negative effects un-checked fear can cause us in our day to day lives:

“Fear erodes our relationships with others and with God, causes us feel abandoned and alone.”

“Fear makes us focus on the worst possible outcome. It is not necessarily wrong, but it never gives us the whole picture.”

So…