Anita and I took our granddaughters to the animal barns Monday. Our first stop was the horse barns. It was early Monday, but there were a couple of draft horses in there. As we stopped so the girls could see, one of their owners stepped into the stall to place a collar over one of the horse’s heads. The horse didn’t like that idea and stepped backwards out of the stall. He (or she) was on a rope, so it couldn’t go far, but that scared the daylights out of Raegan. From that point on, all she wanted to see were the rabbits and ducks. No more big animals for her.

Have you had a scarey experience that put fear in your heart for the rest of your life? This is what Paul described as a stronghold. Not every scarey thing is a stronghold. Fear of fire and heights are healthy fears. They keep us from getting hurt. But there are fears which become strongholds. When a fear becomes a stronghold, it irrationally controls us and holds us back.

I once had a fear of failure because I had failed. Some of us have a fear of relationships because we’ve been hurt in one. Others of us fear electricity because we’ve been shocked before. When an irrational fear holds us back from doing what God has called us to do, it is a stronghold in our lives. We are called to be over-comers and must face our fears.

Paul addressed these strongholds in 2 Corinthians 10:4: “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds“. Let’s fight these strongholds with God’s weapons.

Tags: fear, stronghold