The death of fear only suffering can bring

This past week as I was sitting at my desk I asked myself, "Do I fear death?!" Much to my surprise my answer was a resounding, "No!"

Some years ago on a trip to Nigeria to teach in the School of Revival in Lagos and then the Muslim north I was on a plane that unexpectedly had difficulty. The oxygen masks came out from the ceiling and a loud alarm went off. Not the kind of thing you'd want to hear at 30,000 feet.

We quickly banked and dropped to 10,000 feet to allow the plane to depressurise before the pilots passed out.


I was so scared. I had faced death a few times before, but this time was different. Why? Well this time I had a family. And all I could think of whilst we "spluttered" back to the airport was, "I must get back to my wife and kids". My whole life didn't pass before my eyes, just images of my family.

When I returned to England a week later my 11 month old daughter was acting weird. It turned out she was in the beginning stages of her regression with her debilitating condition, Rett syndrome (story here).

I went from one traumatic experience to another traumatic experience, and the latter has never left me, since I care for my daughter daily.

This story isn't about Rett, but about what happened to me over that 3 week time period... fear!
I became crippled by it. I, a man called to the nations to preach the Good News of Jesus, that all can be free from fear of death, became afraid to fly, and in my counselling sessions since, realised I had become terribly afraid of death.

I think the fear had always been there, but knowing I had so much to live for in a moment of true desperation and through the pressures of trauma I had to come to the conclusion that I was afraid to die.

Why was I afraid? I had done mighty exploits for God. I was soundly saved and seen many people come to the Lord. I was well known for my boldness. But little did people know I had a pain inside which was never dealt with.


Since being saved I knew Jesus as my Saviour, I knew Holy Spirit as my comforter, but I never really knew Abba as my Father.


I entered a long period of time where I was sometimes afraid of my shadow.

I remember being in a country and on a platform in front of thousands of people and fear would come on me. Great things were happening all around yet I was terrified. I was a good actor since no one knew I was struggling inside.

Fast forward a few years and that has all changed.


How? Well, for starters, I believe, in my quest for a normal and loving family I idolised my wife and children. They became the ones who would comfort me, they were the ones who would "father me", having grown up with a dad at sea, and the result of divorced parents, and the result of an alcoholic mother who would eventually succumb to her addictions.


My wife, to me, needed to be more than just my wife. She needed to be my everything, the one who made me feel happy when I was sad, the one who made me feel brave when I was afraid.
Well, sadly I was always afraid. And so afraid of what people thought of me, always looking for a "spiritual father or mother", one who could tell me they were proud of my accomplishments. I was looking for someone to tell me what God Himself wanted to tell me.

Imagine being married to a man who was so afraid that he would control everything in his life to limit his own inner pain, including those around him. Thinking if he controlled his surroundings his ability to have loss would be less.

And that kind of hit the nail on the head for me.


I had been hurt, for most of my life, starting at childhood and going into my mid thirties. Hurt as a child, a teen, a young adult, an adult, a married man and as a father.


All I seemed to know was pain.


And I tried to protect myself from more pain.

I used to have so much joy. But slowly, fear of death robbed me of my joy. Fear of standing before God and Him saying to me, "depart from me you worker of iniquity, I never knew you". It was madness for me to think that God would do this, but I had known rejection for so long that this is what God had become to me. I realised I was mostly serving Him because I feared His retribution if I didn't obey Him. Love was becoming quite distant to me.


And that was what had happened in my own personal relationships. I had become loveless, firstly to those around me, and then to me.

Ministry had become my idol. It was no longer God, family, ministry, but it was ministry, ministry and more ministry.


I was jealous of other ministers because I thought it should be me up there. I had suffered more than any of them and I had served until I couldn't serve any more, and then I still served some more.


Yet I served the world and neglected my own needy family.

Sadly I didn't have many good role models when it came to how a healthy family should act. I'm a first generation born-again Christian and have been "winging it" since day one.

Anyway, how did pain bring me through debilitating fear and bring me to the other side?
Firstly faithfulness. Even though I wanted to give up on life, I remained faithful. As faithful as I could with what I knew. And I was faithful to my family, to God, to the Church, to my community, to my friends. And I knew God was faithful. That He would deliver me.


I always knew He came to set the captives free. He doesn't say whenHe will set them free, just that He promises to set us free.

Sometimes we miss our freedom and our deliverance because we give up too soon. We become so disenfranchised with the process of freedom and wholeness that we try and do things ourselves. Sure, it's a partnership and we do actually need to get up and do something about it, like go and seek deep inner healing from the best psychotherapist around. Can God come and help us supernaturally? You bet. But for me it came over time, when I had to sit down with someone and tell them all about my life, one very painful detail after another.

And instead of hiding my pain I came face to face with it.


The pain of seeing my dad leave when I was 10, of seeing my mother get sick when I was 12, of learning to lie so very well when my friends wanted to come over but I was embarrassed my mum would be drunk, of making excuses as to why she had black eyes, broken bones, dislocated shoulders, why she was 70lbs, why she would soil the bed and the couch would smell of pee.

The pain of leaving England for America by myself at 17 just so I didn't have to watch my mother die. The pain of heartbreak when all I wanted was love but all I got was heartache for the past 5 years of my life as a teen.

Jesus stepped in and allowed me to forgive, but for some reason the deep hurt only surfaced when some even more painful things happened.


The pain of having my mother die early, of having my church, the one in which I served for 10 years without any recognition turn into a cult, of being forced out and retuning to the UK on a mission to win it.

And of course the pain of seeing my only daughter go from being a happy, healthy girl to someone who can't walk, talk, sit up, use her arms, hands or feet, can't eat though the mouth (or drink) etc.


I really could go on when it comes to pain. I haven't even scratched the surface.

The pain I had experienced is just too much to bear. God was kind to everyone in life except for me. I wasn't good enough, didn't do enough.

But the pain caught up to me and hit me square in the face.

If I didn't deal with it I would lose my family, my church, my future.

After much prayer, well, more like begging and pleading, and through an agonising series of events, I found myself face to face with a "professional".

It took 6 months of intense realisation as to why I was the way I was, of looking inward, to realise that my past was key to my freedom.


Instead of running from my pain, I embraced it. I cried... a lot. My good wife sent me away for a few weeks to America to "get my mojo back".


And we needed to heal together once I got back.

I blamed everyone else except for me for my problems. I loved being the fiery preacher who offends every one, after all, I'm getting the job done, right?!

I take great solace in Romans 5:3-5 which says, "Know that suffering produces perseverance;perseverance, character; and character, hope.And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us."

So true. These things have definitely produced a very different person, in a very short amount of time. And had I not been willing to realise that I'm the problem, not everyone else, I would have still been in that place, full of fear, without a family since I would have pushed them so far away they couldn't have possibly stayed, and I would have justified my pain by having more people leave.

So how has suffering set me free from the fear of death?

I came to a point where I didn't care if I lived or died. Really. I actually wanted to die. I was in so much pain I would go down to the beach and beg God to take me home. Thankfully He didn't do what I had asked Him.


But in that point of no longer caring about life the way I once did something was different.
I wasn't suicidal, just pained.

This little voice broke out of my inner most being when begging God to take me home. It said, "But nevertheless, not my will, but Yours be done".

In burying the past and the abuses of it, in dying to myself, of the desire to be seen, to be fathered by someone who really knew me, by embracing the pain, I started to see God, for the first time, as a real Father. That death was not the end, and I actually started to want it. I wanted to die, to be free from this pain. And I started to see Him and His presence, and Heaven in a very new light.

It was a place where there was no pain, no more tears, no more rejection, no more fear. My desire for Him and that place became huge in light of what I had experienced.

I had little more to lose.

I had already almost lost my family, I handed the church over, I stepped away from ministry, I walked away from it all and gave it up in order to have God, and to love my family the way they were designed to be loved.

All because of pain.

I can now kiss my wounds and thank the people who made this possible. To forgive the people who knowingly hurt me, because in the pain I endured, whether by choice or by chance, and due to the pain thrust upon me I can honestly now say I am free.

I am not afraid of hell, of death, of how I die, and not afraid of our Heavenly Father. I can't wait to be with Him!

Philippians 1:21
"For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain."