5 Ways to Reduce Fear in Your Home
Every time the enemy invites us to be afraid, we need to respond on purpose. If we don’t respond on purpose, we end up allowing different kinds of fears into our homes, where they affect us and our children. Many believers in Jesus have unknowingly allowed fear to set up shop near them.
Here are five simple ways we can reduce fear in our homes and invite the presence of God instead.
- Turn off the television.
Turn my eyes away from looking at what is worthless,
And revive me in Your ways. (Ps. 119:37 NASB)
The enemy has launched an attack against who we are and how we see the Lord. The narratives he tells are all lies, even the ones that sound intelligent. He doesn’t use just the news, but we find his narratives on tv shows, social media posts, and everywhere in between.
Just by turning off the TV or not spending as much time online, we reject many of the enemy’s invitations to fear.
- Remember how marvelous God is.
He does great things too marvelous to understand.
He performs countless miracles. (Job 5:9 NLT)
Another way we reduce fear in our homes is by recalling how marvelous God is.
This God we serve isn’t weak or far away. He hasn’t rejected our prayers, nor does He say, “There is nothing I can do for you.”
But He does marvelous things. He gives people pictures, sayings, understandings, and dreams—whatever they need to know Him better. He performs miracles, and He hasn’t given up on us.
- Spend more time in His Word.
This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will achieve success. (Josh. 1:8 NASB)
When we meditate on God’s Word, we “make” our way prosperous and have great success.
The word meditate is often linked with New Age ideas, but this is the biblical mandate in Joshua 1:8: “Let the truth of God roll over you. Chew on it. Think on it.” To meditate on God’s Word means to keep it in our thoughts. It is the truth in a season when the enemy is constantly confronting people with lies.
In whatever way makes sense to you, drill a little deeper into the Word.
- Increase your worship.
All you that are righteous,
shout for joy for what the Lord has done;
praise him, all you that obey him. (Ps. 33:1 GNT)
When we turn our thoughts toward the Lord in worship, we give Him a gift He dearly loves. It is a powerful thing to practice the presence of God and worship Him in simple, everyday ways.
- Hang around like-minded people.
The Bible says faith comes through hearing. That being the case, we need to guard what we hear, and one of the ways we do this is by carefully choosing our friends. If we hang around people who think it’s the end of the world or that God has deserted us, we will naturally have a harder time getting rid of fear.
Instead, we need to spend time with people who believe what we believe: that God has good plans for us, that we can host His presence in our homes, that His peace is powerful enough to conquer chaos and fear, etc. Like-minded people will help us remember what is true.
May you and your family be blessed with the peace of Jesus this week, and may everyone in your home be able to relax in His presence, without the weight of fear.