The Fear of the Lord

I have been in this industry seven years and I still wake up afraid.

4 AM is my start. The clock on my wall says morning, but my team is already in their afternoon. Central Standard Time, three in the afternoon, children picked up from school, coffee on the third pot. I am sitting in the dark at my desk with a cursor blinking at me.

The voice in my head always asks the same thing.

Will today be too much? Will I disappoint a client? Will my body hold up? Will the thing I am supposed to figure out today actually come together, or will I have to apologize for something by evening?

If you are starting out and you are afraid, I want to tell you something I wish someone had told me. That fear does not go away. Seven years in, I still feel it. And it is not supposed to go away.

Here is what I have learned.

The Lord never said we should not be afraid. What He said was, give me your fears, child.

So I give them. Every single morning, before I check my emails, before I think about the problems at work, I surrender everything to the Lord. “Lord, you take care of today.” That is the whole sentence. And peace comes into my heart out of nowhere.

The Bible says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. I used to read that sentence and hear it as a threat. Fear of the Lord, as in, be careful, He is watching. Now I read it differently. When I acknowledge that I am not the source of all things, but God is, that is when true wisdom enters. The fear of the Lord does not make me smaller. It makes me stop trying to be the source.

And when I stop trying to be the source, the other fears get proportioned correctly. The fear of disappointing a client is smaller than the fear of the Lord. The fear of not being enough is smaller than the fear of the Lord. The fear of my body giving out is smaller than the fear of the Lord. They do not disappear. They just sit down.

I will not tell you it is easy. Six figures, easy, fast. No. The journey is hard. Rejection hurts. Hearing that your work is not good enough hurts. Your body being your biggest obstacle hurts. I have cried in front of this same laptop more times than I can count.

But here is what I have come to. When you process these fears with the Lord instead of around Him, you will be surprised how far you have come. Look at me. Seven years ago, if you had told me I would have an iMac, high-paying clients, and a platform to help other Filipino freelancers, I would not have believed you. I was too busy being afraid to be able to see the road.

So remove the limiting beliefs. Take out the “I cannot do this” mindset. Put it in front of the Lord with the rest of your fears.

Results take time. This is not magic. It is a process, and God is with you every step of the way.

Tomorrow morning, before the emails, try this. “Lord, you take care of today. Here are my fears. Take them.”

See what happens.

— Lala