Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Fear

Faith, which is trust, and fear are opposite poles. If a man has the one, he can scarcely have the other in vigorous operation. He that has his trust set upon God does not need to dread anything except the weakening or the paralyzing of that trust.  Alexander MacLaren

I have a young girl who lives next door to us.  Last night I was eating dinner when I heard a knock on the front door.  I looked outside and saw that it was my neighbor.  I opened the door and she was selling cookie dough to raise money for her prom.  I placed my order for cookie dough and then we started talking. 

She is a junior in high school and as we talked she made a statement that caught my attention.  We were discussing if she was going to go to college and she said yes, she wanted to become a doctor.  She said “I am so scared about college”. 

That statement caught my attention.  She is afraid.  I understand being afraid of the unknown because I’ve been there and done that.  Still do sometimes.  What struck me about this conversation was that we adults have a tendency to instill fear in children.  I think it is because we have lived with fear in our own life so we want to make sure that children are prepared for this cruel world we live in.   

Have you ever asked your child what they are afraid of?  What would their answer be?  Younger ones are probably more apt to say they are afraid of the dark or afraid of getting lost.  If you are a teenager what might you be afraid of?  How about afraid of not being accepted by others, or being made fun of in front of others, or as Melissa my 16 year old next door neighbor told me, she is afraid of not getting into college or failing.  I told her that she should never give up.  I also said that every one of us fails at one time or another in life.  The important thing is to learn something from the failure and then get back up and go again. 

Sometimes I think we forget to teach kids how to have faith; faith in a Father who will never leave us or forsake us. Faith that He has a plan for each of us and He is there.  Faith to depend on our Creator to get us through whatever trial we face.  The reality is we live in a world where bad things happen and if our faith isn’t strong enough, fear will overtake us. 

Jesus didn’t have fear.  He was placed here on earth to be about His Father’s business and one of the most fearful things to happen to Him was for Him to die on a cross.  He trusted and had faith that God knew what He was doing.  Fear was not the answer, faith was.  Teach your children to have faith and not fear.  The Bible tells us that the only one we should fear is the Lord.  If we don’t practice faith every day, we will give in to the fears of the world.   
   
Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, there are times when fear overtakes me and I react instinctively out of fear.  Help me to strengthen my faith so that when circumstances happen that would normally cause me to be fearful; instead I will turn to You in faith knowing that You know what is best for me and will see me through.  I want to practice the faith of Jesus.  He knew what His life was about and it was all about living for You and saving a sinner like me.
      

Scripture: There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love Him because He first loved us.  1 John 4:18-19

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