Conquering Fear

Tuesday I was called upon to meet someone on their own turf.  Something about the invitation made me nervous.  I began to think I may be in personal danger.  Yet, I felt that the meeting was in God’s will and that what transpired would also be in his will.  Driving to the rendezvous, I was thinking what if this should be my last trip?  What if I had only moments to live?  When I actually arrived on the scene, all my fears were quickly allayed.  The tone of the meeting immediately dispelled all my irrational fears.  This was a lesson for me that I must not forget.  I must not live by fear, but by faith.  While trusting in mankind can sometimes lead to disappointment, trusting in God is mandatory.  As a Christian, personal safety or survival is not the utmost concern.  Many risks from my point of view are best left in God’s hands.  Risk therefore becomes psychologically manageable as I place myself in the will of God.  Obedience rather than fear becomes the immediate and reliable source of action.  Acting on eternal principles carries certain risks, but nowhere near the risks involved in acting on temporal anxieties.  And surmounting nervous angsts can have a calming and cumulative effect, attaining a gradual sense of survivorship as trust in the Lord is validated by positive and productive outcomes.  The bottom line: evaluate the source of fear—is its source temporal or eternal?  Opt to err on side of the eternal.  As the saying goes, aim for heaven and earth will be thrown in.

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