Fear is Contagious

Deuteronomy 20:8
“Then the officers shall add, “Is any man afraid or fainthearted? Let him go home so that his brothers will not become disheartened too.”
Fear is contagious for various reasons. Fear will most importantly discourage you from moving forward. Secondly, fear prevents others around you from moving forward. Thirdly, fear is an outright contradiction to faith. As a side note I noticed that fear is the starting point to being fainthearted, the disheartened.
The first thing fear affects is you, and discourages you from moving forward. In Deuteronomy 20, Moses is giving instructions on conquering the inhabitants of the promise land. In Deuteronomy 20:4, the priest proclaims this to the army,” For the Lord your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory”. There were some members of the Lord’s army that were afraid of the battle, even though they knew God was with them and would destroy the enemy. Fear prevents you from going places of elevation, and leaves you in stagnation. Fear also discourages what the Lord has proclaimed over your life. Fear brings doubt about whether or not what the Lord has said will come true. The slowness of your progress may be a direct result of fear infection in your life.
The second part of Deuteronomy 20:8 say “let him go home so that his brothers will not become disheartened too”. Fear effects and affects people that are close to us. When you are destined to do something important for God, be careful of keeping fearful people in around you. Remember the story of the 12 spies that Moses sent out 10 came back with a negative word and begin to infect the whole community with fear. If you believe that at that time Moses was leading over a million people to the promise land. Then essentially 1 fearful person can infect a 100,000 people. No one that is going with you to achieve your purpose from God is allowed to fearful of anything, because they may cause others around you to become fearful too.
If God gave them the decree through the priest in Deuteronomy 20:4, the statement in Deuteronomy 20:8 should not have been made. The reason it was made is that fear contradicts faith. A person cannot have faith and fear trying to achieve a purpose. Either you believe (faith) that you will achieve your purpose or you doubt (fear) the road/path that you have to travel for your purpose. So many people are stuck in a place of fear, and claim that they have faith, but can’t understand why the purpose is not manifesting. Your purpose can’t grow when is being fed to different foods (faith & fear). At some point in your life either faith will abide in you or fear will continuously abound in you. You have to decide who stays and who goes.
Notice in Deuteronomy 20:8 that the word “afraid” progress to fainthearted and the disheartened. I thought it should be noted that fear will make you fainthearted, and eventually disheartened toward your purpose. According to the dictionary fainthearted is to lack courage or be cowardly. The first stage fear will drive you to be a coward and a lack in courage. Achieving your purpose will be done by courageous living, which will be a reflection of the faith you have in the word of God. The next level fear will drive you to after fainthearted is disheartened. The word disheartened means to depress the hope. Fear ultimately wants you to sit on the promise of your purpose. If you allow fear to infect your life, the lack of courage will prompt you to become disheartened about your purpose, and you will sit or depress the promise of your purpose. Please don’t let fear or anyone that is fear-infected stop you from achieving the promise for your purpose that God has spoken over your life. Fear-infected people are everywhere, even in our churches. So many people are trying to put the spirit of fear on children, to stop them from achieving what is different. We have to encourage more and be like Joshua and Caleb, “We can take the land, for it is good”.