Faith and Fear

Wow. God is so good. I need to keep it brief this morning, but I have been battling a great deal of fear and anxiety lately and I wanted to share what God is doing in the midst of it. After struggling through years of sickness and depression, my deepest fear is going back to that place. There have been events in my life that have been catalysts for either plunging me into fear or building my faith. I have some big things ahead that are going to try to test that faith, and I have been afraid.

I woke up even this morning, feeling the fear and worry that my sinful heart is prone to. Yet God continues to encourage my heart. Check it---

I woke up to a song on the radio, and the station then flipped to an interview with a musician that quoted 2 Timothy 1:7 “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound-mind.”

I turned on my light, hit snooze, and began thinking about that verse…when the alarm went off again, it was towards the end of a new song saying “Tell me when I’m gonna live again/Tell me when this fear will end.” My thoughts toward God exactly. I saw fear and sickness cripple me from living life once. So I prayed that God would give me encouragement. That He would speak to me. Give me something to hold on to.
I continued to let the music play in the background, as the first few notes began to play of a song that I recognize. The lyrics begin, “You know my anxious heart/You know what I am feeling/And when I fall apart/You are there to hold me”. As it got to the chorus, “Hanging on to every word you speak/Cause it’s all that I need” I decided to turn off the radio and read my bible. I read through the first chapter of 2 Timothy, wanting that verse about fear to be fresh in my mind before I moved on to my devotional.

I took my devotional book and flipped to February 24th. The topic today was “Keep Strokin’!”. While I don’t have time to recount the whole thing, let me give you a couple quotes from it, that will sum up the main idea:

-If you are really serious about getting to the other side – you’ve got to take what is in front of you and keep pushing it behind you. In other words, keep strokin’. You might be crying while you’re swimming, but keep stroking.
-Your faith has got to rise up and fight your fear.

While all of these may sound circumstantial to you, or just by chance, I am believing that God heard my prayer and is giving me something to hold on to today. I pray that He will continue to speak to my heart, and the heart of others that are in need of hearing His voice. Stay open and attentive to hearing what He has to say, for you might walk away more encouraged than you even imagined.