You have received your sign from God

And it is your fear.

You want to know your calling in general or particular?

Do you want to know who you are supposed to be?

Where is the fear most intense?

That’s where you must go to meet God and realize all your potential in life.

I suffered my first panic attack in December 1994. Extreme anxiety and panic are as much a part of life for me as allergies and weight control.

As much as anxiety and panic are miserable companions, they are excellent teachers if you are willing to listen and observe.

Fear is useful for keeping us safe from real danger: Cigarettes, reckless driving, unprotected sex with strangers, etc.

But our brain does not know the difference between perceived danger and real danger. It releases the same fight-or-flight chemicals whether it’s an attractive female or an F5 tornado approaching.

And this is where fear shows us the way we must go and teaches us who God is trying to make of us.

Living with extreme anxiety and panic for 21 years is making it clear what God is trying to do for me and with me.

Two examples:

Panic is teaching me that I’m afraid to be confident and strong, especially for those around me. Which is the same as saying that I’m afraid to NOT be confident and strong for those around me. I’m so afraid that my confidence and strength with fail people who need me to be there for them.

Thus, I’m afraid to go into hospitals and places where people are exposed, sick, and weak. Panic teaches me that I truly DO want to go there and be strong enough to comfort and encourage and relieve. But I’m afraid that once I get to that bedside, I’ll collapse and do harm to people who need me.

The lesson from panic: I am the man God made me to be when I’m comforting and encouraging those who are suffering and weak. This is the deep and true desire of my heart to love people this way.

It’s the intensity of my fear that reveals the importance of this calling.

The second example is one that panic only recently revealed to me.

It’s the fear of being comforted, encouraged, and helped. It’s the fear of falling down and falling apart so that someone has to bear me like a burden. It’s the fear of letting someone bathe me, put on my clothes, talk tenderly to me, wipe my rear end.

Thus, I’m afraid to enter any situation where I must ask for forgiveness, grace, or help of any kind. I’m afraid to be in a situation that could force me to do those things or force someone else to give them.

The lesson from panic: I’m a proud and stubborn man. The life God has for me is a life of love and love is a two-way relationship. As much as I am called to care for those who need help, God also calls me to be the one who needs care from others. Getting that close to anyone frightens me more than anything else I can imagine.

And yet it is what I need more than anything else in the universe.

So what to do?

I don’t think God will ever take away my anxiety disorder. It’s too valuable a teacher. And a guy with ADHD needs a teacher who knows how to get and hold his attention!

Fear is showing me what to do, where to go, and how to live to be the man God made me to be. Peace may not be the absence of fear, but the presence of a faith that’s just big enough to get me a few inches beyond my limits. And inches is how we grow to become the people God made us to be.

What about you? What is fear trying to teach you?