2 Timothy 1:7 NKJV
There is often nothing in this life which can paralyze someone more than their own fears. Fears of confrontation, of social situations even fears of disease. While some of our own fears may be well grounded and indeed keep us from doing something stupid, there are others which may be baseless. It is these unfounded fears within us which we eventually will confront. I know a good deal about fear, because I carry more than a few with me. One fear which I have harbored for more than a few years is a fear of heights. Now, this fear may have kept me from throwing myself off of a steep cliff or being reckless in some other way, but it also kept me from enjoying more than a few of lifes experiences. Over the past few years I have come face to face with this fear during my hiking trips with my friend Dennis. In the begining, the running joke was that I would often hug the inside part of a trail, as I felt it safer than walking on the edge. Whether this was true or not is not the issue. The issue is whether these fears of mine were well grounded or not. The interesting thing is, the more often I walked a certain trail, the more comfortable and less fearful I became of that location. With my eyes had seen and experienced what my inner senses once screamed was going to kill me. Far from falling to my death, I lived to savor the enjoyment of our Lords creation. The lesson Icame away with from this experience is that the more we face those fears which paralyze us, the more we may find that these fears themselves are baseless. For his part, Dennis would often bring in our relationship with Christ Jesus into our struggles with fear. With this I will agree. For as the apostle Paul explains in the book of Timothy, our heavenly Father has not blessed us with a spirit of fear, but of love and a sound mind. In other words, our fears are not from God. Knowing this may help us in our battle with overcoming these fears.
25“Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26“Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27“Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? 28“So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; 29“and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not larrayed like one of these.
Matthew 6: 25 - 29 NKJV
In Matthew 6 in Jesus' sermon on the mount we see Him address these fears of ours. The fears which Jesus addressed must have been common among the people of His day for Him to use them as a example in this teaching. The people must have had deep set fears of having enough to eat or even decent clothing. That being said, I'm sure they often struggled with how it was that they would pay for such things. These are common worries even in todays society. We struggle, toil and wonder if we will have enough provisions to make it. With our ears we have heard that our Lord will provide for His children, but in our hearts we have failed to believe. Yes, I've been down that road as well. My question is this, why would God promise to provide for us only to pull back on His word? Why would Jesus make the same point of our Lords provision if it were not true? Was He lying? One thing I have learned may fly right in the face of modern day church teaching, but I believe that my heavenly Father rejoices in providing for my needs and does not do so simply on a reward basis. For we are His children whom He loves, why would He not provide for His own? It is exactly because of this reality why Jesus must have inquired on the Mount of Olives that day, "So why is it that you worry?" Jesus was getting to the heart of the fears of those who were listening. Whatever the fear is that is paralyzing us at the moment, we can be assured that we are not enduring it alone. The very truth of Christ Jesus which Paul tells us in Galations 2:20 assures us that Christ Jesus shares our life with us. I have never known Jesus to be afraid of many things.
~Scott~
Angels Rest trail at 1,600 feet ~ Fearless!
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