Stop, Drop, and Roll: 3 Steps to Extinguish Your Fear

As I pulled into the parking lot of my destination, I still couldn’t shake my nerves. I hadn’t felt like that for weeks.

When I had first started co-teaching a Bible study with some other ladies from my church, I had anxiety every time. But, diagnosing the source of my fears, prayer, and the Lord’s faithfulness had dimmed those nerves so that, now, I usually arrive at the Bible study with a sense of peace.

This time, though, we were going to test a new Bible study that I had written myself. I’d bathed the study in prayer during its creation and knew God had guided me, but, somehow, I still faced unusual nerves as I waited to see if the study would work in the class setting.

What did this Fear Warrior do about it? I went into the study engaged in a mental examination about why I was nervous and why I knew I shouldn’t be. Not surprisingly, my anxiety stayed with me for much of the study, calming only toward the end, when I knew it was going well.

This result isn’t surprising because, even though I knew I was being attacked by fear, I didn’t Stop, Drop, and Roll.

Yep, the old safety tip for putting out a fire on your body works for putting out the fear in your heart, too.

STOP

When fear starts to cling to us, and you know that feeling—that sense of “stress” or worry or anxiousness that often precedes the point where we recognize we are afraid—we need to STOP what we’re doing and pay attention to that feeling.

These early moments of fledgling fear, which we often ignore and tolerate, are like those very first flames that catch hold of your clothing from a fire. If we don’t stop instantly, the flames will quickly grow and multiply until our whole selves are being destroyed by our fear. If we eventually put out those flames later, we will be scarred, giving fear a greater, damaging hold on our lives.

So, follow the fire drill exactly. The moment those flames of fear catch you, stop and think. Identify why you’re afraid. Name it and admit it.

Don’t stop at the superficial explanation, but dig deep to search out the true root of the fear. Sometimes, we won’t like what we find (pride, lack of faith, etc.), but we won’t be free of the fear until we are honest and fully aware of its actual cause.

Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the Lord! – Lamentations 3:40

I partially followed this step leading up the Bible study, as I worked to identify why I was so nervous (afraid). But I didn’t stop what I was doing and give it my full attention.

My second crucial mistake was in not following the next two steps to put out my fear.

DROP

Step two, which I did not do on the day of the Bible study, is key. Fire safety includes this step in part because if you don’t drop once you’re on fire, the air and wind created by your movements will fan the flames into an all-consuming inferno.

Fear behaves the same way. Fear (and the Enemy who uses fear to attack us) loves our tolerance, our ignorance, our busyness. These responses (or lack of response) to fear quickly fan this insipid sin into dangerous flames that are harder to put out and could consume us.

I was running a few minutes late for Bible study that day, so I just didn’t have time to deal with my fear as I knew I should.

But, if I’d felt the heat of literal flames licking up my clothing, I would have made the time to extinguish the flames.

Fear is that important, too. Fear is just as dangerous, if not more so, to our spiritual and emotional survival and health. If fear has caught aflame, make the time to DROP.

That is, drop to your knees in prayer. You can literally get on your knees if you want or figuratively get on your knees as you come in prayer before the throne of God with your fear.

Pray that God will enable you to fight and beat your fear, but don’t let that be your only prayer. Pray the hard prayer of confession, repenting of the pride or lack of faith in God that is likely at the root of your fear. Ask God to strengthen your faith and grant your genuine humility.

Whatever the reason you’ve identified in step one is the cause of your fear, confess the sinful aspect of that and ask God for forgiveness and help.

Then finish this Drop step with prayer of thanksgiving, thanking God for the promises He’s made and will keep, for His power and strength, for His faithfulness, for His comfort and presence, and so on.

…do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. – Philippians 4:6

Because I didn’t take a moment to drop and spend concentrated time in prayer of confession and thankfulness, I invited fear to stay with me for the Bible study and left an open door for it to return more easily on future occasions.

If we drop before God instead, we may even manage to douse those flames before we reach step three.

ROLL

If the flames of fear are small enough, you might have already put them out when you followed the Drop step of intentional prayer.

But if, like me, you didn’t Stop, Drop, and Roll early enough—or if this fear is an especially powerful and flammable kind—you might need to follow through with every step of the fear safety drill and Roll.

Personally, I think the Roll step is a good one to do even if you think you have extinguished your fear. It’s like when firemen pour water over ashes—it’s good to be safe, to make sure that fire of fear is truly dead and won’t flicker to life again.

So, either way, ROLL. This is the follow-through action step, where you do something to fully eradicate your fear and prevent it from catching flame again, at least in the near future.

If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. – Matthew 5:29

Jesus tells us to take serious action to prevent sin from consuming us. If you’re seeing something that’s causing you to fear (even by way of discontentment, jealousy, selfishness, etc.), stop looking at it. If you’re seeing or hearing the world’s lies and belief in them is leading you to worry, stop exposing yourself to those lies. If you can’t stop obsessing over something that’s causing you anxiety, perhaps you need to take steps to remove that situation from your life, or at least not allow yourself to even think about it for a period of time.

Other steps you can take to thoroughly douse your fear include practical tips like singing or listening to worship songs. Go through the “praise alphabet,” naming an attribute of God for every letter of the alphabet. Or, and this one is my favorite, read or recite fear-fighting Scripture verses. Laughter or focusing on meeting someone else’s needs are also effective ways to extinguish your fear.

PRACTICE AND PREVENTION

Just as kids need to practice the Stop, Drop, and Roll technique for fire safety, we need to decide now what we will do the next time we feel fear catching hold of us.

We need to decide we will not tolerate it or obliviously let it fan into consuming flames. We need to practice stopping to examine our fears, dropping in prayer, and rolling in action before we’re in danger.

Then, the next time fear flickers in our hearts and minds, we will be ready to put it out before we’re singed. Just remember to Stop, Drop, and Roll.

Which of these three steps have you applied to your battle with fear? Which do you need to add to extinguish your fears? Please share!

Photos by Peter John Maridable, mehul dave, Elijah O’Donnell, Jamie Street, and Yoann Boyer on Unsplash. Original graphics designed by Jerusha Agen.