Fear or Faith

Sometimes in life, you may, no, scratch that, you will come across difficult situations. It's just a fact of life. Unless you live in a box. But then you wouldn't be reading this, so you don't get that excuse. From the youngest age, on up till we visit the grave, we will be faced with hard things. People will annoy us, attack us, accuse us, offend us, and you have to choose how to deal with it.

Now, I know there are many different ways to deal with these things, but I think many of them boil down to choosing fear or choosing faith.

Fear can be people's initial responses all to often. From the youngest age, we are taught to fear strangers, stoves, streets. We have it instilled in us that there are bad things that are going TO KILL US!!!! And while that's true, can I just say, "So?"

Ok, so maybe not everyone has such a flippant attitude towards death as I. Ok, I mean, yes, there are things that will kill us, and that would be awful to die before our calling is accomplished, but does that mean we should change our life and live afraid of every possible thing that might injure us? That would be ridiculous. And while we may not do it with things like paper, things we eat, not exercising, and I'm sure many others, we live our lives in fear in so many areas instead of in faith.

I am not talking about being stupid. Don't jump out of an airplane without a parachute. If I'm being honest, I won't be jumping out of a plane voluntarily with a parachute anytime soon. That terrifies me. I like to think of it as a healthy fear though. (I may need to reread this afterwards and take some pointers from myself.) But I am talking about living the life you were called to.

There are always going to be things to be afraid of. Some of them may even be legitimate things. But fear does one thing. It holds us back. It is a tool that the devil uses to keep us down and out, with nothing but a horrid idea. There's a reason we're told to guard our mind, to cast out things that are contrary to what Christ has spoken into our life. Because we were not meant to live in fear.

We were  meant to see the obstacles, the dangers, take notice of them, and then TAKE CHARGE! We are supposed to be a people of action! We are supposed to be on the offensive, fighting the good fight of FAITH. We have a Lord who has our back. He equips us to do the things we are called to do. He  trust us to do these amazing things He has called us to do. Can we not trust Him to know what He's doing?

Often times I see this lack of faith when it comes to missions. Whether it comes to getting money for the trip, being able to speak the language, cultural barriers, being able to effectively minister, or the dangers that maybe present there. People use these as reasons to say that they weren't actually called. That makes me really mad. Did you think that the devil put the idea in your head so he could lure you to Mexico/Africa/Indonesia to kill you? Really? Because I'm fairly certain that if you give the devil that much power in your life, he could get it done wherever you're at right now.

Now when you get attacked, whether it's spiritually, physically, or however, there are those two responses. To hid, never do what you did before that brought this attack on, or my personal favorite, suit up. Take lessons in combat training. Go and get your conceal and carry. Prepare your spit wads. Because this is war. And we aren't in it for prisoners. We're out for blood. (To clarify, I do mean the devil's. Do not go out for blood when the boy next to you in kindergarten eats your swirl metallic crayons. You will get a Stop Sign and be held back from recess.) Let's not back down from our callings. Let's grab faith, our Bibles, the teachings of the Lord and His promises, and go head first into the fight!




Thanks for reading and sharing this! It shocks me all the time. And if you want to read my attempts at being funny, follow me on Twitter! @laurenjeanstm Thanks, and Love!