Do you remember the first time you ran and hid? The first time you felt a genuine sense of fear, the first time your guard went up, the first time you felt the inclination to shrink in shame? For most of us it happened young—for me it was a nightmare that gripped my little heart in total fear. I was young enough to be sleeping in a princess nightgown, and in the dream I got up from my bed and walked into an empty living room. When I looked outside, there was a huge tree growing right in the middle of my front yard. As I got closer to the tree, I saw the feet of a giant standing beside the tree, so tall that I couldn’t even see his head for the clouds. That’s the only image I remember—next thing I knew, I woke up paralyzed in fear, scared to get out of my bed to find my family. 

In hindsight, my little nightmare was probably a reaction to the “Jack and the Beanstalk” fairy tale I heard that day, an innocent story that grew so much in my imaginative mind that it wrapped me in fear hours later. Those of us with active imaginations understand what it’s like to talk ourselves into a totally unnecessary, ridiculous fear. That tree was real, the giant was definitely as big as I remember, and I was in grave, immediate danger—at least, that’s what the little girl in the princess gown thought. And no one, no matter how rational, was going to convince me otherwise. 

Fear seems to be our thing these days. Just today, as I sit and listen, everyone is talking about it. Fear of what the world will become in the hands of people in power. Fear of the wrinkles starting to form around our eyes. Fear of that friend who we have to see tomorrow at school. Fear of not being able to pay for bills, or cars, or school uniforms, or family vacations, or eggs. Fear of what might be, fear of what won’t be, fear of what is or is not to come. We over-medicate, under-meditate, over-caffeinate, get side-hustles, get botox, get chickens—all while rest, true rest, is always at our fingertips but never on our calendars. Don’t mishear me. Most of those things are not bad things. The problem is this: we, as people of God, have accepted fear as the perpetual undercurrent of our reality. 

You may have heard it said that the Bible contains the command “do not fear” 366 times. That’s enough to hear a new one every day of the calendar year and then some, just in case you have a particularly fearful leap year. If you haven’t looked into all 366 of these, you should. There is so much of the goodness of God we can see in his constant reminder against fearfulness. But our culture has tricked us into a deeper, more sinister, and harder to identify form of fearfulness that I would call victimhood. It’s more than just fear—it’s souls in constant state of defense, always waiting for the next misfortune, offense, or crisis. Instead of having momentary, circumstantial, everyday fear, we take our responses to fear, which are very real (anxiety, depression, anger, materialism, constant entertainment, etc) and slap it on our chest like a nametag. We’ve made fearfulness an identity. 

Some of this isn’t a personal problem. We were not created to take in so much negative information, violence, contention, and evil on a daily basis. We have all kinds of opportunities to fuel our fear, to feel like a constant victim of evil and never fight back. Lots of us, instead of looking to what Scripture says, have taken our coping mechanisms and claimed them as identities, content to live under the banner of “anxiety,” “depression,” “anger,” or a number of other things for the rest of our lives. It’s where we live now—and that’s just “how it is, I guess.” But if you are in Christ, the name of Jesus speaks a better word over you. 

It is a scheme of the Enemy to keep us in that kind of bondage. If the Enemy of God can look at God’s people, people who the Bible says are “seated in the heavenly places with Christ” (Eph 2:6) and “held together by the word of his power” (Col 1:17), who have been “given all authority in heaven and on earth” (Matt 28:18) and who “will soon crush Satan under their feet” (Rom 16:20) and make them cower in fear instead of march forward in confidence, then he wins. If he cannot keep us from believing in Christ for salvation, then the next best thing is to keep us from living in the victory of it. 

Here’s the truth: we cannot be content to live as victims anymore. The world is too lost, God is too good, and your inheritance in Christ is too rich to let fear make you a victim. Romans 8:35-39 speaks directly to this: “Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?…No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present or things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Even if you have been a victim of sin (your own sin, the sins of others, or the general brokenness of the world), in Christ, that’s not who you are. In him, you are more than a conqueror. 

Even when it doesn’t feel that way, even when it feels like the Enemy is taking ground, even when you fail, even when tragedy strikes, none of those things are stronger than your Savior’s grip on you. Death, angels, authorities, powers, uncertain futures, insecure incomes, unstable homes—nothing can separate you from his love. Nothing gets to name you, claim you, or rule you but his total, complete, and overwhelming love for you. It will not leave, it will not fail, it will not give up. Victimhood isn’t your reality—God’s love is. 

Which takes me back to my princess gown and my giant. So many of us are staring at giants of fear, and the words of Jesus feel shockingly small next to a giant with his head in the clouds. Until you remember what is true: that giant of fear, whatever it is, is just a schoolyard bully next to our God. He reigns supreme and undefeated. No giants, no nightmares, no fear stands before his love for you. 

What is that thing controlling your heart and your mind? What is the giant of fear, taunting your faith in God? That isn’t who you are. Stop naming yourself by it. Replace that lie with the truth of God’s Word, and cling to it. There is too much available to you, and too much Kingdom work to be done, to settle for anything less than His love for you.