GBS Week 4: Fear or Faith?

This week’s lesson is based off of the show Fear Factor. Fear Factor is a reality show where contestants compete to win a cash prize. To win, they compete against each other performing dangerous and frightening stunts. The first stunt is designed to physically test the contestants—such as jumping from rooftop from rooftop, with the fastest people moving on to the next round. The next challenge is supposed to test the contestant mentally—this usually involves eating something disgusting, such as a cockroach, or ten year old eggnog. The last stunt is an extreme-type action that you would see in a movie. Such as flipping a car, or escaping from a shark infested pool. The player who completes this round the fastest wins the prize.

For you, which of the following actual stunts from Fear Factor would take the most courage?

1. Being locked in a box and covered by tarantulas.
2. Eating wormy hotdogs and maggoty fried chicken.
3. Leaping from one suspended beam to another, 20 stories in the air.
4. Crouching for hours in a small, dark, enclosed septic tank with deafening sirens and occasional electric shocks.

People tend to react in a number of different ways to situations they find threatening. Take a look at these three types of behaviors that we’re calling “fear factors”.

Stressing out: When you can’t stop worrying about something that might happen. Stressing out takes over your thoughts and drains your energy.

Freaking out: A common way of reacting when you feel threatened by people or situations that you can’t control. Freaking out fills you with dread and causes you to shut down or lash out.

Hiding out: When you cover up your fear, which can take the form of denial, retreat, or lying. Hiding out leads to deeper deception as you try to escape a consequence or cover your insecurity.

Lots of people in the Bible exhibited some sort of fear factor when facing stressful situations. In response, each of them learned to have a faith factor—a spiritual tool (prayer, trust, truth, etc.) they could use to combat their fears.

If you stress out, then your faith factor should be prayer. Read the book of Esther to see how she fought stress with prayer.

If you freak out, your faith factor should be trust. Trust that God is in control and that He has good things planned for you.

If you hide out, then your faith factor should be believing the truth. Live your life in an honest and truthful way.

There are a lot of situations that life is going to throw at us that cause fear. What we need to do is equip ourselves with faith factors so that we can properly react to that fear.

~Emilee