But now, thus says the LORD, your Creator, O Jacob,
And He who formed you, O Israel,
"Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name; you are Mine!" (Isaiah 43:1)

The first emotion that man showed after the fall in the garden was fear. God came looking for Adam, and called out, “Where are you, Adam?”

Adam answered, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid” (Genesis 3:9-10). Here we are in the beginning of the Old Testament, at the first dawn of life, and man is already struggling with fear. Likewise, in the early morning light of the New Testament, Peter shows us that nothing has changed. Fear still has humanity in a stranglehold. Peter has his first encounter with Jesus down by the Lake of Gennesaret, and tells him, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!”

Jesus answers, “Do not be afraid. From now on you will catch men” (Luke 5:8-9). Peter is in bondage to his fears, and Jesus begins to lift the chains off of his soul.

Almost 2000 years later, mankind is still enslaved by fear. With the constant threat of terrorism, wars, rumors of wars, the threat of economic collapse, the destruction of the family, and the removal from culture of a God who can help us, we have only created a pandemic of depression and anxiety disorders.

The mental health community is scrambling to try to keep up with the growing epidemic of fear and depression in the modern age. New medicines are constantly being developed; books are being written; courses are being taught. And yet all this poor generation is left with is little more than a little help in coping with these relentless enemies. It seems now we have a phobia for almost anything. Here’s an example of just a few phobias that I came across (some silly, some not so silly):

Alektorophobia- Fear of chickens
Algophobia- Fear of pain
Allodoxaphobia- Fear of opinions
Arachibutyrophobia- Fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth
Aulophobia- Fear of flutes
Blennophobia- Fear of slime
Bogyphobia- Fear of bogeys or the bogeyman
Bufonophobia- Fear of toads
Caligynephobia- Fear of beautiful women
Cancerophobia or Carcinophobia- Fear of cancer
Cibophobia- Fear of food
Claustrophobia- Fear of confined spaces
Dutchphobia- Fear of the Dutch
Ecclesiophobia- Fear of church
Enosiophobia or Enissophobia- Fear of having committed an unpardonable sin or of criticism
Felinophobia- Fear of cats
Geniophobia- Fear of chins
Gephyrophobia or Gephydrophobia or Gephysrophobia- Fear of crossing bridges
Heliophobia- Fear of the sun
Helminthophobia- Fear of being infested with worms
Hemophobia or Hemaphobia or Hematophobia- Fear of blood
Iatrophobia- Fear of going to the doctor or of doctors
Ichthyophobia- Fear of fish
Japanophobia- Fear of Japanese
Kakorrhaphiophobia- Fear of failure or defeat
Levophobia- Fear of things to the left side of the body
Lilapsophobia- Fear of tornadoes and hurricanes
Linonophobia- Fear of string
Lutraphobia- Fear of otters
Metrophobia- Fear or hatred of poetry
Microbiophobia- Fear of microbes
Necrophobia- Fear of death or dead things
Nelophobia- Fear of glass
Nosocomephobia- Fear of hospitals
Numerophobia- Fear of numbers
Nyctohylophobia- Fear of dark wooded areas or of forests at night
Ophidiophobia- Fear of snakes
Ophthalmophobia- Fear of being stared at
Papaphobia- Fear of the Pope
Parasitophobia- Fear of parasites
Paraskavedekatriaphobia- Fear of Friday the 13th
Peladophobia- Fear of bald people
Pentheraphobia- Fear of mother-in-law
Rhytiphobia- Fear of getting wrinkles
Rupophobia- Fear of dirt
Russophobia- Fear of Russians
Scolionophobia- Fear of school
Verbophobia- Fear of words
Virginitiphobia- Fear of Rape
Xanthophobia- Fear of the color yellow
Zemmiphobia- Fear of the great mole rat

I think my favorite one is "the fear of chins."

Our fears can be even more subtle than that…fear of our past, our present, our future; fear of failure; fear of punishment from God; fear of God not loving us, etc. The bottom line is this…people are in bondage. How can we escape living a life of bondage to this age old enemy called Fear?

In the Old Testament and New Testament, God says to His people, "Fear not, for I am with you." God gave us four words to bring comfort to our souls even on our worst day. I am with you.

I just took my wife and four children on a camping trip. We had an amazing time enjoying the beauty of God’s creation in the Stonybrook State Park in western New York. My children especially enjoyed the natural slides and waterfalls on the river. One slide in particular had a pretty strong current and my daughter Essie was scared. "Daddy, will you go with me?" I agreed, and she laughed all the way down the slide.

Did you know that the fact that I said "I am with you" made something that would normally be terrifying to a five-year-old girl exhilirating? The fact that I was with her brought comfort, peace, excitement, and joy!

God is bigger than any challenge or enemy we’ll ever face! I could say a lot more about fear, being an expert scared person and all (in my past), but I’ll just give you that to chew on. God says, "Fear not, for I am with you."

there are some hopefully usefull facts about phobias for you.

What’s more, knowing the originating problem doesn’t always help because the phobia may bear little relation to it.

Some people believe that phobias develop from the body’s natural desire to protect itself.

Unconscious or emotional learning takes place to keep us safe. In primitive conditions when coming into contact with something dangerous, the mind/body would create the optimum state for survival – a panic attack.

This type of learning is not of the intellectual or rational type. If you had to think, “Yes, I think this would be a good time to have a panic attack" our species would have died out long ago.

This type of learning takes place at an emotional level so that the response can bypass the ‘thinking brain’ In the past, an immediate phobic response to a predatory or poisonous animal would have been exceedingly useful.

We therefore evolved with the ability to become phobic. In today’s complex world however, this learning mechanism often works in an inappropriate way.

Non-specific phobias can come about either through a ‘spreading-out’ of panic attacks, or through a person’s levels of general anxiety becoming so high that panic is easily triggered whenever stress levels are raised even slightly.

Phobias are very real to the people who are experiencing them and should not be taken lightly by those around the phobic. My own grandmother is deathly afraid of cats. We own two cats.

While we might think her fear is silly – our cats are really cute – we still accommodate her when she visits by putting the cats away.

Phobias have actually been around for years.