Overcoming Fear: My Frightful Flight

I lie down and sleep and all night long the

LORD protects me.

I am not afraid of the thousands of enemies who

Surround me on every side.

Psalm 3:5-6

One fateful morning, while travelling from Lagos to Port Harcourt, guess who sat beside me? That creepy, miserable, attention-seeking, lying beast called fear. Innocent me, I did not realize this until it caught my attention.

This was what happened.

I boarded the flight and sat in my favourite spot, a window seat. While the plane glided in the clouds, I began to admire God’s creation; that particular day, the clouds looked like they were on a fashion parade, I don’t remember seeing a more beautiful scene. The clouds looked like a pack of cotton wool, at some point it looked like snow in winter, then like a flock of white sheep; it felt like I was watching the Milky Way, a spread of white curtains… I could go on and on. It was so beautiful that I was almost breathless! Honestly, everything God created is beautiful, including you reading this.

While engrossed in my galactic show, with the aircraft moving at different altitudes; the miserable attention seeker nudged me and whispered, “what if this plane crashes?”. Startled, I replied; “Huh?” (I wish I did not give an answer). It repeated its gimmick and added; “can you not see how this aircraft is moving in between the clouds? Is it normal? You will just be lost in the clouds when the crash happens”.

Then I looked up and saw one of the flight attendants smiling and engaging in a discussion with the passengers seated by the emergency exit. Fear hugged me tightly and whispered slowly, “that’s what I’m saying; the attendant is telling them what to do when the plane crashes, they will make use of the emergency exit… I wonder if they will survive, how much more you that is seated farther away from the emergency exit”. At this point, fear had engulfed me and I had also gripped fear; we were locked in a very tight embrace like lovers. My focus had shifted from the beautiful clouds to the expectations of a plane crash. I thought of my family, regretted my trip and started praying in my heart like never before.

Throughout the flight, fear and I held onto each other and I refused to let go. It was whispering into my ears saying “sweet nothings” while I prayed (in fear) silently the whole time. We were still locked in our tight embrace when the plane landed and taxied along the tarmac for a while, but I did not realize it would no longer “crash” or that it did not even crash at all.

The irony of this story is that, nothing happened… I mean, NOTHING HAPPENED… the plane did not crash, and the flight attendant was actually having a friendly conversation with the passengers when I looked up earlier. In fact, the flight arrived 10 minutes earlier than scheduled and the pilot jokingly apologized for arriving early. My goodness! I felt stupid and robbed of my beautiful “Cloud Fashion Parade” experience.

I told myself the next time the creepy liar comes around, I would not give it access to my thoughts. However, as a human, it takes a lot of effort and consciousness.

Sometime later, I saw six missed calls from my sister while I was in church and concluded that something terrible had happened at home to warrant her calling me six times repeatedly. When I eventually spoke to her, she said she just wanted to discuss a minor issue.

Fear is always hanging around, looking for who to deceive. Here is my advice on how to tackle fear:

• Speak-Up: When fear says something, you counter it with the opposite of that thing and tackle the situation with the word of God. Being vocal helps to silence any other voice.
• Train your thoughts: In the multitude of voices you hear daily, train your thoughts to hear only your Heavenly Fathers’ voice. The voice of God is soothing, calm, and removes any form of fear.
• Confess God’s Word: Keep declaring what God has said over your situation. Find bible verses and encouraging messages concerning the situation that makes you afraid.
• Be cautious & learn to separate fear from reality. Sometimes what we fear is not real; they are mostly figments of our imaginations. Whenever fear comes, remember the acronym for FEAR – False Accusation Appearing Real.

Written by Udochi Anokwu