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What are the little foxes that are ruining your joy and causing you pain? I’m focusing on the small hurtful things that we allow to ruin our days and steal our joy. Solomon wrote:
Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom (Song of Songs 2:15).
We want to catch those little foxes and get them out of our lives. Now we know fear is one of the enemy’s favorite weapons and we are all vulnerable to what I call “petty fears.” Let’s address a few of those smaller ones, those joy-stealing fears that are truly unnecessary.
Fear of a Dreaded Outcome: These are the fears that something bad just might happen, so to avoid that possibility we limit our activities and set unnecessary boundaries in our lives. These fears interfere with your everyday life, limit where you go and what you do, and can keep you from experiences that are often enriching and delightful.
Fear of Change: “That’s the way we’ve always done it” can be a verbal cover-up for petty fear. Change can truly bring petty fears out of the closet!
And there are lots more. Getting over petty fears doesn’t mean you get rid of the emotion that accompanies these fears. It means you go forward despite them:
- You get on that airplane with your knees knocking, but you get on.
- You say, “Sure, I’ll try” when asked to step out of your comfort zone.
- You agree to a change in procedures, even though you wonder how you’ll ever learn that new software.
Once you take a first courageous step to overcome a fear, you begin to see new avenues of interest, new opportunities, and things to learn and do that were hidden to you before. And conquering fear in one area gives you strength to tackle other areas of fear.
Other petty fears can plague us, so if you recognize a little fox you need to get rid of, like everything else, it is done through prayer and God’s Word.