“Fear is the great illusionist. It looks larger than it is. It whispers lies about your worth, your strength, and your future. Fear is only an obstacle until you walk toward it—then it becomes the path.”
Those words, shared recently by my friend Tony Merola, stirred something ancient in me.
Not just a memory, but a presence.
My Shifu’s teachings came rushing back—his voice calm yet fierce, echoing in my spirit: “Fear is a liar. It is there to test your will. Your destiny lies on the other side of what you fear most.”
Though his language was Eastern, the wisdom resonated with something deeply Christian—
that perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18).
The truth of those words has followed me across years of leadership and life: fear is not the enemy of faith; it is often the doorway through which faith must pass.
Those lessons weren’t just philosophical. They were lifelines.
In my own journey, every crossing—from uncertainty to calling, from hesitation to obedience—has been marked by this pattern:
each fear confronted becomes a threshold.
Each threshold crossed reveals something more whole, more capable, more true.
Fear in the Skin, the Heart, and the Mind
For me, fear lives in the skin, like a chill. It flutters in the chest, a shiver of the heart.
And perhaps more than anything, it wages war in the mind. It dresses up as logic. It whispers convincing arguments.
But when I slow down and listen with the Spirit rather than the senses, its tone betrays it.
Caution has grounding. Fear does not.
Caution arises from discernment. Fear thrives on imagination unmoored from trust.
Discernment practice has taught me this:
our senses and emotions are not reliable sources of truth. They are indicators. They stir something in us, but they do not define what is real.
That is the Spirit’s realm. And when we surrender our striving to the Spirit’s guidance, the false logic of fear begins to unravel.
The Illusion of the Knee
In my early twenties, I tore my meniscus and damaged a ligament.
For years, I built my life around the fear of reinjury. I avoided movement that challenged the knee.
I told myself I was being wise. But when I began working with a trainer who asked me to test those limits, I resisted.
The fear said I would break.
The Spirit asked, what if that belief is what’s keeping you broken?
As I trusted the process and began moving through those illusions, I found something unexpected—strength, stability, capability.
What I had feared was weakening me far more than the injury itself. Fear had become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
That realization opened doors. I returned to San Soo, a martial art I loved but had abandoned. I began Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, something I never thought I could do.
Each time I stepped into a new training space, I brought my fear with me.
And each time, I found my footing not by eliminating fear, but by walking straight through it.
Fear and the Fool’s Path to Mastery
Discernment has reshaped my relationship with fear.
I no longer react to it with the same tremors of mind or heart.
I walk into unknowns with a strange, settled confidence—not that I will succeed, but that I will be okay even if I don’t.
Fear tries to convince us that being a fool is failure.
But you cannot become a master unless you first dare to begin as a fool.
To step into any new calling, practice, or path requires us to move without knowing, to accept incompetence, to be unguarded.
Discernment is not the absence of fear—it is the prayerful noticing of fear’s voice and the Spirit’s quieter one beneath it.
This is the paradox both the Daoist sages and the Scriptures hold in tension:
the yielding becomes whole, the low becomes filled.
As Paul writes, “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion” (Philippians 1:6).
And, “All things work together for good for those who love God” (Romans 8:28).
The Leader’s Journey: From Reaction to Co-Creation
Fear always shows up where vision is being born.
It tells us to turn back just when we are ready to become what we were made to be.
In those I lead and accompany, I see this over and over:
fear masquerades as reason, as prudence, as practicality.
But it is only ever a test—a final sentinel guarding the threshold of transformation.
What if fear is not the thing to avoid, but the signal of invitation?
We are made to co-create with the Creator.
But few of us step into that holy work because fear speaks louder than Spirit—until we learn to discern.
Until we learn that fear lies.
Crossing the Threshold
Fear becomes the path when you walk toward it.
The truth is this: what I desire most is almost always on the other side of the list of reasons why I believe I can’t have it.
And that list is usually written by fear.
But the Spirit keeps calling.
The Way keeps flowing—as Jesus called Himself, “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”
So I ask you:
What fear are you standing before today?
What if that fear is the very signpost of the Spirit’s invitation?
What if, on the other side, is exactly what you have been praying for?
Perhaps that is what faith has always asked of us—to step where our eyes cannot yet see, trusting that the Spirit meets us on the water.
If you sense the Spirit inviting you to walk through what fear has guarded, schedule a consultation.
Sometimes discernment begins with a conversation.
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