DO YOU HAVE FEAR? TURN IT AROUND!

By Rev. Johnny Lee Clary




I never will forget how I used to be bullied before I learned how to fight. When I was in the 9th grade, there was this one bunch of hooligans that threatened me all the time back when I was a kid in Bell Gardens High School in East LA. This one chick, I think her name was Alice was known as the school bicycle, which meant everybody got a ride. She had these punks that followed her around and did whatever she told them to do. One was named Barry and the other I can’t remember and there was some other guy whose name slips my mind also. They kept pushing me around and Alice told me every day I was going to get my a** kicked. She kept saying “It’s coming down soon,” and crap like that until one day as I was on my bike riding home her boys all jumped out in front of me and knocked me off my bike. Alice appeared from behind a bush and said “I told you it was coming! Today’s the day punk!” She then said to her boys, “Kick his a**!” All three of her guys moved towards me at her command. At that point I had to make a choice; I could keep my fear and be dead meat, or I could cast out the fear and fight! I had a split second to react and all of a sudden the fear left. I grabbed my chain that I used to lock my bike at school, and I didn’t wait for them to reach me, as I swung the chain hitting one of the guys right in the face. He screamed like a little girl and ran off crying! Then that Barry guy ran as fast as he could and all I saw was his white sneakers disappearing around the corner like greased lightning! The other guy was no where to be found either. They left their girlfriend Alice all by herself who was screaming and crying and begging me not to hit her! I would never hit a girl but I told her she best leave me alone or the next time she wouldn’t be so lucky. I told her to “Git, git, git, git, git,” and she ran away as fast as she could. Those punks never messed with me again and when they saw me at school they avoided me.

The point behind this story is fear is never good. Fear can keep you down, make you a coward, and destroy you. God’s word says in 2 Timothy 1:7, “God has not given us a spirit of fear but one of power, love and a sound mind.” Since God did not give us fear that means it could only come from one other source and that is Satan himself. We don’t need anything that comes from him! You see fear had me falsely believing that Alice’s boys where tough, bad, and invincible. When David was a little shepherd boy armed only with a sling and he saw Goliath the giant, he did not fear him. He looked at his size and was not thinking about how fast he could flee from the giant without him catching him, but instead he was thinking that because of his size the giant Goliath would make an easy target to take down!

We need to stop fear dead in its tracks and realize God gave us power! Matthew 28:18 says all power has been given to Jesus, and Philippians 4:13 says we can do ALL things through Jesus who gives us strength! Therefore if you believe God at His word then you have nothing to fear!

I could have kicked myself for all the times I allowed fear to rule over me when I was a kid, and it wasn’t until that day I took care of Alice’s boys, that I realized I didn’t have to be afraid anymore. You don’t either. Stand up to those who bully you! Take a stand against those who push you around. Stand your ground and say I will not be moved!

When African-American’s finally had enough of the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacists in the South who bullied them and kept them down, they all took a stand against hate and marched into towns in Oklahoma, Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi singing “We Shall Not Be Moved!” As a result and many sacrifices, today the civil rights African Americans didn’t have for years because of fear, they now have! Another song African Americans sang while marching against the injustice of the white supremacist system, was “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Us Around!” They didn’t and they turned the entire system around. They all marched right into Birmingham Alabama and right up to one of the most notorious racists of all time, Police Commissioner Bull Connor singing that song. Connor turned the fire hoses on them, had them arrested and even turned the police dogs loose on them. In spite of this they just kept coming back singing, “Ain’t gonna let Bull Connor turn us around, turn us around turn us around, ain’t gonna let Bull Connor turn us around, I'm gonna keep on a-walkin', keep on a-talkin' Marchin' up to freedom's land!”

If you are living in fear, stop it now and turn it around! That is the only way you can have true freedom!

Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world! 1 John 4:4

Rev. Johnny Lee Clary is an ordained elder minister in the Church Of God In Christ, the largest African American denomination in the USA. He is one of the leading advocates for racial unity in the United States and has appeared on countless television and radio shows such as The Billy Graham show, Fox News, Morris Cerullo, Oprah, Morton Downey Jr., Rolanda Watts, Geraldo, Sally Jesse Raphael, Jerry Springer, Ricki Lake, Queen Latifah, Montel Williams, Phil Donahue, A&E Investigative Reports, ABC World News Tonight, Bertrice Berry, The Today Show, A Current Affair, The 700 Club, and Kenneth Copeland's TV show. He has also been a regular guest on TBN's Praise The Lord show and has been featured in America's top newspapers and magazines, including a seven page feature story in Charisma magazine in Feb. 2010, April 1999, Moody Magazine, Guidepost Magazine (Sept. 1998), Kenneth Copeland's Believer's Voice of Victory magazine, as well as appearances on TV programs in Australia, England, Holland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Sweden, and Wales. He holds the record for the largest crowd ever at Hillsong Brisbane, Australia.