Fear

We are living in tough times right now and it can be very frightening.  Many people are consumed with the news and are very fearful.  I want to encourage you with a famous quote by Franklin D. Roosevelt “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” This was written during a dark period in our history.

FEAR IS NOT GOOD FOR YOU!  FEAR does three things:

• Fear paralyzes us- it causes phobias, such as fear of elevators, heights, flying, rubber snakes, etc.

  Fear makes you irritable-it can make you angry or out of control.

  Fear can make you physically sick- Internalizing too much can make you sick.

Before we talk about fear, let’s laugh first. One of my favorite scriptures is ”Laughter does good like a medicine” (Prov. 17:22). 

The photographer for a national magazine was assigned to get photos of a great forest fire. Smoke at the scene was too thick to get any good shots, so he frantically called his home office to hire a plane. "It will be waiting for you at the airport!" he was assured by his editor. As soon as he got to the small, rural airport, sure enough, a plane was warming up near the runway. He jumped in with his equipment and yelled "Let's go! Let's go!" The pilot swung the plane into the wind and soon they were in the air. "Fly over the north side of the fire," said the photographer, "and make three or four low level passes." "Why?" asked the pilot. "Because I'm going to take pictures! I'm a photographer, and photographers take pictures!" said the photographer with great excitement and impatience.   After a long pause, the pilot said "You mean you're not the instructor?"   Now, that is why we should not be irritable but always polite and introduce yourselves first .

Let me remind you what the Word of God says in 2 Timothy  1:7 “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind”.  Fear is not from God and we need to be reminded of this.