I’ve always struggled with a spirit of fear, from before I can remember, as my parents tell it. It’s been a battle to overcome and trust God more than I trust that voice of fear and anxiety. All throughout my childhood, I fought a fear of the dark, fear of public speaking, fear that I had nothing important to say. God radically set me free when I was nineteen while I was at Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry, and He spoke, “I am loosing your tongue.” It took many years to feel confident in speaking in front of people, and it’s still something I’m growing in. But for many years the spirit of fear didn’t overwhelm me like it did when I was young.

A few years ago in 2023, the spirit of fear came knocking again. For years I’d had a measure of freedom, and seemingly from nowhere, I was struggling again to overcome anxiety. I would lay awake at night, or suddenly be woken up from a dead sleep with a dark presence by my head or standing over me in the corner of our bedroom. Things I’d experienced when I was a child and had no idea how to battle, I now knew how to take authority and cast out.

I couldn’t help wondering why I was going through all of this again. The spiritual activity around our house was very prevalent. One very early morning, I’d had enough. I got up and went out to our living room and knelt on the floor. I got my Bible and had worship music playing. I thought, “If I can’t sleep, then I’m going to take Satan's kingdom by storm.” I spent several weeks and months interceding for my family and friends. I prayed over our community and the things going on in the world. Eventually, the night attacks stopped and I was able to sleep again.

At the time I didn’t know why I was having to fight a battle I thought I’d already won. But Jesus was teaching me how to fight again, and how to go deeper with Him in the midst of a storm.

A Push to Go Deeper

Matthew 14:22-33
Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray.Later that night, he was there alone, and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.
Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear.
But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”
“Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”
“Come,” he said.
Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”
Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”
And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

In those moments when I felt so alone on my living room floor, when the darkened felt so oppressive I could hardly breathe, I would wonder, “Where is God in this pain?” Why am I going through this all over again?

It was in those moments that God brought a scripture to mind:

***1 John 4:18***
“Love never brings fear, for fear is always related to punishment. But love’s perfection drives the fear of punishment far from our hearts. Whoever walks constantly afraid of punishment has not reached love’s perfection.”

‭‭My prayer become, “Perfect Your love in me, Jesus.” Obviously, I had not been perfected in His love. And during that time, He began to do just that. I think I’ll always need to be perfected in His love. But each day, I want to be “more perfect” than I was the day before. His love drives out fear, until the voice became nothing more than a whisper.

Whose Voice Are You Listening To?

Sometimes there’s other voices in the midst of the storm. Other people, who are well-meaning, are trying to tell you how to function in the storm. Or they have a similar experience and tell you how to get through it, but that might now be what God is doing in you!

Jesus showed up—and the storm was still raging. He wanted Peter to experience something supernatural, and then breakthrough came. It took the storm to show him the revelation. He was calling Peter to a deeper place, a place he had not seen before.

It’s easy to trust God in the calm. He’s not wanting you to just declare your faith in Christ, but to show it in action. God wants to see a tangible, real faith. Go deeper in your faith, your perseverance, your resolve, your love, and joy.

Be careful what voices you allow in the middle of your storm.

Peter was walking on water, and he often gets a bad rap because he took his eyes off Jesus and looked at the wind. Fear gripped his heart. When we focus on the wind, we learn how to react to the negative circumstances, instead of learning how to keep our focus on Jesus and go deeper with Him.

That’s what happens in a storm: we hone in on ourselves instead of looking outward to have compassion for what people are going through in their own storm.

People are always talking, circumstances are always swirling, the news is always gabbing—whose voice are you going to choose to listen to in the storm? Are you going to listen to Jesus or fear? The storm can distort your perception of reality.

Never make your storm your identity. Peter could have very easily given in to the guilt and condemnation of that experience and never grown past it. He could have left Jesus after they made it back to the shore and said, “I’m not worthy.” But he never would have seen the rest of what Jesus wanted to accomplish through him and with him.

Don’t make your identity the place where you might have failed or made mistakes. Allow the Lord to perfect His love in you, even in the middle of the storm.