How to Best Conquer Our Fear Through Prayer
Fear is a weighty word, one we’re often more comfortable leaving unnamed. We downplay it as worry, anxiety, or insecurity. It’s our personality or preference, we say. Yet to conquer our fear we must first face it, acknowledge the grip it has had on our lives.
One of the things I’ve learned from studying the Enneagram is that we all fear something. If you are not familiar with the Enneagram, a boiled-down description is that it is a tool that shows us our unique ways of seeing, understanding, and responding to the world around us. Unlike many personality tests, the Enneagram is about why we do the things we do—our motivations rather than our behaviors.
Each of the nine numbers on the Enneagram have a core fear that influences how they default. According to Suzanne Stabile in The Path Between Us Study Guide,
Believing they are flawed in some fundamental way, Ones are afraid of being wrong.
Twos feel unworthy of being loved, so they are afraid to see themselves as loved and loveable.
Threes believe they are loved for what they do and not for who they are.
Fours are afraid they are ‘too much’ in their desire to be seen and understood in relationships.
Fives fear that they will not have adequate resources to meet the demands of relationships.
Sixes have a lot of anxiety about many things that others seem unconcerned about.
Sevens are afraid of being trapped in situations that are boring or conflictual.
Eights fear being controlled by others.
Nines fear misunderstandings that might result in disconnection.
While the Enneagram is not inherently Christian or even spiritual, it can uncover and name areas of our life we are apt to stumble so we can invite the deep healing only God can do. In this way, the potential of the Enneagram as a spiritual growth tool is vast. Additionally, the Enneagram encourages us to see from the lens of others, fostering understanding of and compassion for others that enhances community. For both these reasons, learning about the Enneagram has been a favorite series for the neighborhood missional community I help lead.
Sometimes the things we fear are quite obvious to us, and sometimes we have to dig a little deeper to detect whether fear is what is driving us. Perhaps Suzanne Stabile’s explanation of what each Enneagram number fears stirred something inside you. If you’d like to dig deeper into the Enneagram, I’ll share a list of resources I recommend at the end of this post.
Though we each have varying fears that pull strongest at us, we have at our disposal tools for overcoming our fear. One powerful way we can conquer our fear is through prayer. Let’s look at how we can best overcome fear by employing the power of prayer.
1—Know Who you pray to
First, prayer is potent not because of who is praying, or how we are praying, but Who we are praying to. The One who listens to our prayers is all-powerful, always present, and the very essence of peace. We are not simply saying words when we pray as a self-help ritual, we are praying to the God of the universe, who hears us.
God wants us to spend time getting to know Him. He wants to reveal in increasing measure the fullness of Who He is. “If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me,” He declares through Jeremiah 29:13 NLT. Psalm 9:10 TPT echoes this reassurance, stating that “O Lord, you will never, no never, neglect those who come to you.” Yet again in Psalm 63 we read what happens when we make a practice of coming to God. Let’s read King David’s words in verses 1-8 from The Passion Translation:
O God of my life, I’m lovesick for you in this weary wilderness.
I thirst with the deepest longings to love you more,
with cravings in my heart that can’t be described.
Such yearning grips my soul for you, my God!
I’m energized every time I enter
your heavenly sanctuary to seek more of your power
and drink in more of your glory.
For your tender mercies mean more to me than life itself.
How I love and praise you, God!
Daily I will worship you passionately and with all my heart.
My arms will wave to you like banners of praise.
I overflow with praise when I come before you,
for the anointing of your presence satisfies me like nothing else.
You are such a rich banquet of pleasure to my soul.
I lie awake each night thinking of you
and reflecting on how you help me like a father.
I sing through the night under your splendor-shadow,
offering up to you my songs of delight and joy!
With passion I pursue and cling to you.
Because I feel your grip on my life,
I keep my soul close to your heart.
Something happens when we begin, like David, to seek God. The more we search Him out, the more intensely we long to know Him—the more we simply cannot get enough of Him.
We may not begin our days with the intensity of King David’s desire for God, but we can start with our small steps towards Him, resting in the assurance that as we set our gaze in God’s direction, He will be faithful to meet us and grow our desire to know Him.
Knowing Who we pray to allows us to conquer our fear because we know that nothing is impossible for God (Luke 1:37). He is far bigger than anything we fear.
2—Know what He thinks about you
Yet another component of employing prayer to conquer our fear is knowing what God thinks about us. The things we fear might sway our opinions of ourselves. We might see what we are not more easily than who we are in Christ. Yet when we forget who we are we walk into the battle already defeated.
We’ve talked in previous weeks about memorizing and repeating aloud in front of the mirror scripture verses that tell you what God says is true of you. I referenced this wonderful list from Joyce Meyer of scriptural affirmations. I’ll share of few here, and I encourage you to check out Joyce’s full list.
I am greatly loved by God (John 3:16; Ephesians 2:4; Colossians 3:12; 1 Thessalonians 1:4).
I am not ruled by fear because the Holy Spirit lives in me and gives me His power, love and self-control (2 Timothy 1:7).
Christ lives in me, and I live by faith in Him and His love for me (Galatians 2:20).
3—Simply be real with Him
Knowing Who God is and who I am to Him nestles me in the security of His love. In this place, I am now free to simply be real with Him—real about my fears, both big and small. God wants open communication to flow between us. He wants us to come to Him about everything we face. He never meant for us to face our lives alone.
Philippians 4:6-7 TPT tells us,
Don’t be pulled in different directions or worried about a thing. Be saturated in prayer throughout each day, offering your faith-filled requests before God with overflowing gratitude. Tell him every detail of your life, then God’s wonderful peace that transcends human understanding, will guard your heart and mind through Jesus Christ.
In order to conquer our fear through prayer, we must talk with God about the details of our actual lives. All wisdom to face the decisions before us is authored by Him, and all the strength to face the hard things in our lives comes from Him within us.
4—Lean on what God has already promised
We can likewise conquer our fear through prayer by leaning on what God has already promised. Numbers 23:19 NIV tells us that “God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?”
When we pray Scripture, we have confidence that we are praying according to God’s heart. What He has promised already, we know that He will be faithful to fulfill. Let’s read Isaiah 41:10 NKJV then pray through it together.
Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
Thank you, God, that I do not have to fear. You are always with me. Thank you for your nearness. Thank you for the ways you strengthen me and help me and hold me up.
For more information on how to pray Scripture back to God, check out this helpful article. And for a list of scriptures to pray against fear, click here. (I’ll share the links in the show notes.)
A final note as we conquer our fear
I don’t know exactly which fears you are facing today, but I do know that God never changes, and He is the one who helps us conquer our fear.
Before we close, I wanted to share one final encouragement with you: as you practice being real with God, let it overflow into your openness with others. Bring others around you—a family member, a friend you can trust, a neighbor you’re getting to know—into the conversations you are having with God about the thing you fear. What God is working out in your heart can be helpful for others. So let others in, and let the things of God overflow from you.
Let’s pray.
God, thank you that you never leave me alone in my fear. You are here—always. Give me eyes to see how near you are. Fan the fire in my heart to know you. Teach me who you say I am. Thank you for caring about every ordinary details of my life. Thank you that nothing is too big or too small to bring to You. Thank you for your promises that I can always count on. I love you. In the precious and holy name of Jesus, I pray. Amen.
* Resources on the Enneagram I recommend:
- The Path Between Us (book and study guide) by Suzanne Stabile
- The Road Back to You (book) by Ian Morgan Cron and Suzanne Stabile
- Your Enneagram Coach/Beth McCord (for the best free Enneagram test and lots of invaluable resources)
- The Enneacast (podcast series by Love thy Neighborhood)
- Gospel for Enneagram (including devotionals for each Enneagram type—some out already, more still coming)
- Enneasummer 2019 and 2020 series on Annie F. Down’s That Sounds Fun podcast
- The Enneagram Journey (Suzanne Stabile’s podcast) for a deep dive into all things Enneagram
P.S. Did you know The Uncommon Normal is also a podcast? Tune in on Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, or Spotify.
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