Do you have a spirit of fear? Lately I've been thinking a lot about the pockets of fear we have in our lives—sometimes small pockets, sometimes big ones—where we find it very difficult to trust God, and therefore we have a controlling fear in that area.

 

For example, Abraham had a pocket of fear about being killed. Here is a man described in Hebrews 11 as a man of great faith. God called him from a prosperous and comfortable life and said, "Go to a land I will show you," and Abraham simple obeyed. He packed up and left to go to a place he had never been to before, to leave his family and familiar surroundings behind. Even though he did not know where he was going, he went. That took great faith. Would you be able to do what he did? 

 

Also, he was able to believe that God could give him a son even though his wife was barren and they both were past the age of childbearing. That took tremendous faith. But what really marks Abraham as a great man of faith was his willingness to offer that miracle son as a sacrifice, and was about to sacrifice his one and only son because Abraham believed that God could raise the dead if necessary. Every time I read that story, I just shake my head at this man of incredible faith.

 

Yet, when he was traveling in Egypt, on his journey to the Promised Land, he revealed a pocket of fear. Abraham was afraid the Egyptians would kill him because of his beautiful wife, Sarah, whom they would want for their own. So, in fear he told Sarah to tell less than the truth—to say she was his sister—in order to keep them from killing him.

 

You'll find that story in Genesis 12, and as I read that recently, I thought, "Abraham, what in the world is your problem? You believed God in all these huge, gigantic areas, but you can't believe that God can keep you and Sarah alive in Egypt? Where's your great faith?"

 

Well, Abraham had a little pocket of fear, and it led him into sin. It began to dawn on me that we all have these pockets of fear. We can have great faith in some areas, at some times, and then our faith falls apart the next day or the next hour or when we round the next corner. 

 

I want to talk about some common pockets of fear that many of us are harboring, and look at some biblical methods to empty out these pockets and give them over to Jesus so we're free from the control they have over us.