Everyone is afraid of something, but when your fear is so specific that it triggers excessive levels of anxiety or panic, you could be suffering from a phobia. Phobias are distressing emotions that are initiated by fears, both real and imagined, that are simply out of proportion. Irrational fears about a place or situation, an object or an animal can make it difficult to live a normal life.
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Around 10 million people in the UK suffer from some type of phobia. But what exactly are people so afraid of? The 5 most common phobias in the world are:
1 – Arachnophobia – fear of spiders
An excessive fear of spiders & other arachnids such as scorpions is the most common animal phobia in the world. Often, the cause is the perception that some species of spider are deadly dangerous and the human survival instinct kicks in. Arachnophobes often go khổng lồ extreme lengths to lớn make sure their surroundings are spider free.
2 – Ophidiophobia – fear of snakes
Affecting nearly a third of the adult human population, a fear of snakes also has evolutionary roots, since venomous snakes can kill. In extreme cases, ophidiophobia can stop a person from going camping or hiking, or take part in any activity where snakes or other reptiles have a chance of appearing.
3 – Acrophobia – fear of heights
An irrational fear of heights or falling from height is a phobia whereby the sufferer gets highly agitated or panics – which could affect their ability khổng lồ climb down to lớn safety. Extreme acrophobics can’t even tolerate stepping on or off a chair without suffering symptoms.
4 – Agoraphobia – fear of open or crowded spaces
A fear of open spaces, or of crowded spaces, can be a debilitating condition that prevents the sufferer from going out in public – from shopping centres khổng lồ concerts or theatres and many other social situations. There’s intense panic even at the thought or sight of such a space, & the feeling that it will be impossible khổng lồ escape from. Agoraphobics often display avoidance behaviour and limit their range of activities, suffering from depression.
5 – Cynophobia – fear of dogs
Another common animal phobia, the fear of dogs (and often also of cats) can lead to lớn even more limiting social behaviour since domestic animals are a common sight in residential areas. The condition typically develops in childhood and, interestingly, nearly ¾ of cynophobics are women.
Other types of phobia can involve the fear of flying (pteromerhanophobia), fear of germs (mysophobia), fear of injections (trypanophobia), fear of failure (atychiphobia), fear of abandonment (autophobia), fear of social situations & many others.
If you suffer from any type of phobia, you don’t have to live the rest of your life in fear. There are many therapy options available khổng lồ effectively giảm giá khuyến mãi with a phobia, allowing you to lớn face và overcome your fears once & for all. They include Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Exposure Therapy và an approach based in Integrative Psychotherapy.
The first step lớn a lasting change is to lớn make tương tác with an experienced & sympathetic therapist. Why not gọi the friendly team at Klear
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Try Tabletalk NowIt’s a multibillion-dollar industry. It fuels the Internet. It dominates political campaigns, talk radio, & the evening news. It sits on therapist couches and speaks on Facebook feeds. No respecter of persons, it steals sleep from feeble beggars & mighty kings.
What is this pervasive, inescapable, suffocating phenomenon?
Fear.
Human beings have always been scaredy-cats. That observation is not surprising. What is surprising is that even we—evolved “modern” people—are so scared.
On paper, we should have fewer fears than any generation before us. We’re surrounded by security systems, advanced medicine, organic food, and endless information on a glowing rectangle in our pockets.
Yet we are deeply, miserably afraid. Far from loosening the choke hold of fear, the material blessings of our age seem only lớn have tightened it.
Illusion of ControlThe achievements of modern life—medicinal, technological, và otherwise—have given us an ever-increasing sense of control. Actually, more than a sense. We really vị enjoy more control over more aspects of life than ever before in history. We’re so accustomed to a convenient, custom-designed, there’s-an-app-for-that quality of life that we’re more shocked when things are hard than when they’re easy.
Without realizing it, this increasing sense of control can begin lớn feel natural, intuitive, right. Not a gift, mind you—a right. And we start to lớn believe that if we can simply manage our fears, they will never master us.
We are wrong, and we are miserable.
But it’s even worse. Addicted khổng lồ what we can control, we extend the borders of our kingdom into realms we can’t control. We try to control circumstances, but trials rudely show up uninvited. We try to control people, but they don’t stick lớn our wonderful plan for their lives. We try lớn control our future, but He who sits in the heavens always seems to laugh (Ps. 2:4).
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From Scientism khổng lồ SelfismIn recent decades, as modernity has given birth to postmodernity, our culture’s reigning authorities have shifted, with the sovereignty of science bowing to lớn the sovereignty of the self. Of course, the sovereign self isn’t a new actor on history’s stage; we’ve been climbing up God’s throne lớn topple Him ever since Genesis 3. Nevertheless, there is something genuinely new about our cultural moment in 2018. Fifty years ago, if you asked your unbelieving neighbor where lớn find truth, he likely would’ve pointed you to science. Ask the question today, và he’ll point you to you. Believe in yourself. Be true to yourself. Follow your heart. From doctoral seminars to lớn Disney films, the religion of expressive individualism dominates the Western world. I don’t know if René Descartes (“I think, therefore I am”) would be proud, but DNA tests show that he’s the father.
What does all this have to bởi with our fears? Much in every way, as Paul might say. If you really are “the master of your fate & the captain of your soul,” as the poem puts it, then everything is riding on you. Don’t crash.
Not only bởi we have more stuff than ever—and therefore more than ever to lose—but we’ve promoted ourselves to a position for which we’re embarrassingly underqualified. The job description included omnicompetence, & we were arrogant enough to think we’d be a good fit. So we spend our days playing God, trying to lớn figure out the dials while steering the ship.
No wonder we’re paranoid.
Stand-Alone GodSo what is the answer khổng lồ our dilemma? How can we disentangle ourselves from the fears that won’t leave us alone? One answer is the doctrine of inerrancy. Yes, inerrancy. Simply put, if your Bible is not wholly true, then you should be terrified. Why? Because if your Bible is not wholly true, then you have no reason to trust that the One in charge of your life is both great and good.
I’m so grateful that my college campus minister, Dan Flynn, loved to lớn emphasize these twin truths from Scripture. “God can and God cares,” he would say. I didn’t quite realize it at the time, but in those simple words he was distinguishing biblical Christianity from every religion on the market. Protestant liberalism, for example, offers a God who is good but not great. He cares, but He can’t. He’s a nice buddy, an experienced life coach, even a world-class psychotherapist, but ultimately He’s just “the man upstairs.” Meanwhile, other religions such as Islam offer the opposite: a God who is great but not entirely good. A God who can, but perhaps doesn’t care.
But when we mở cửa our Bibles, something unprecedented happens. It’s stunning, really. We encounter a living Lord who is both great và good, sovereign và kind, who can và who cares.
If God were only good, I would go khổng lồ bed frightened. How could I worship someone who, bless His heart, means well & is doing His best? But I would likewise go to lớn bed frightened if He were only sovereign. What assurance is there in knowing He’s mighty if He’s not merciful? What comfort is there in a deity who doesn’t care about us?
Rival FearsMost of our anxieties are species of one great fear: the fear of man. We’re terrified of being rejected, embarrassed, finally exposed for who we really are.
In his 2005 commencement address at Kenyon College, the late American novelist David Foster Wallace captured this universal, even primal, human dynamic. Wallace was not a Christian, & yet his words struck a profound spiritual chord:
The compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing khổng lồ worship . . . Is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money & things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never feel you have enough. Worship your body toàn thân and beauty và sexual allure và you will always feel ugly, và when time và age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. Worship power, and you will over up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more nguồn over others lớn numb you to lớn your own fear. Worship your intellect, & you will over up feeling lượt thích a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is . . . They’re unconscious. They are mặc định settings.
Paralyzing fears over poverty & aging và weakness và exposure and countless other threats are due, ultimately, to disordered doxology. Our worship is misplaced. Rather than enjoying God in His rightful place—the sun around which everything in life orbits—we have dislodged Him and replaced Him with a mirror. Without Him as our gravitational center, everything spins off in a thousand directions. Such is the insanity of idolatry. No wonder life feels so chaotic, so exhausting.
According lớn the Scriptures, we fear man so much because we fear God so little. Fearing the Lord is the ultimate key to understanding (Prov. 1:7) và the antidote to lớn anxiety.
To be clear, we don’t fear Him because He’s mean but because He is holy. He’s not a dictator or traffic cop in the sky; He’s the Lord of love. He is beautiful. As the Puritan John Flavel observed, “Godly fear does not arise from a perception of God as hazardous, but glorious.” The One who made us and saved us is worth our esteem, our reverence, our awe. Và the counterintuitive beauty of grace is that His forgiveness woos us into even greater fear (Ps. 130:4).
The Lord & the Lamb
In Luke 12, Jesus exhorts His disciples not khổng lồ be anxious, since their Father in heaven is both infinitely great & perfectly good. Then He makes one of the most beautiful statements in all the Gospels: “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to lớn give you the kingdom” (v. 32).
Shepherd. Father. King. Three massive truths shrink-wrapped in one verse. The God we meet on the pages of Scripture—and only that God—is the Shepherd who seeks us, the Father who adopts us, and the King who loves us.
And two thousand years ago, in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Shepherd King became the Lamb slain. As comforting as it is, then, lớn hear “The Lord is my shepherd” (Ps. 23:1), there’s something even better: the Lamb is my Shepherd (Rev. 7:17). The One who crafted you in His image is the One who pursued you, lived for you, died for you, rose for you, intercedes for you, và will return for you if you’re resting in Him.
Unbroken StreakDo you know what’s the most repeated command in the Bible? “Fear not.” I imagine that’s because God knew we would need constant reminding—yes, even we twenty-first-century moderns with smartphones in our pockets.
Human history is the long story of God’s unbroken faithfulness lớn scaredy-cats. He has never failed one of His own. Don’t be so arrogant as to think that He might somehow kết thúc His streak with you. He won’t. Has He not been faithful to lớn you over the course of ten thousand yesterdays? You can trust Him for tomorrow.
And as you look khổng lồ Jesus Christ, the author & perfecter of your faith, don’t forget to lớn listen. You just might hear your chains of fear start to lớn crack.
