Faith vs. fear

For the last few weeks, I’ve been listening to the podcasts of Pastor Tim Lucas of Liquid Church, New Jersey. I recommend it- pretty powerful stuff. He has a knack of presenting biblical truths in a pop culture setting. The Exodus Unlocked series and the Rock God series are just a few of my favorites.

What I’m about to reflect on right now is on one of Ptr. Lucas’s stand-alone sermons (at least I think it is).

Faith vs. fear. Before anyone can differentiate one from the other, he must first discover the similarities between the two. Faith is a reaction to things that has not happened yet. It is an admission that a person can only do so much and things are beyond his control. Fear, on the other hand, is a reaction to things that has not happened yet. It is an admission that a person can only do so much and things are beyond his control. See, aside from the obvious difference in the spelling, not much difference exists between the two.

The difference is you!

Free will, that part of your soul that not even God touches, decides. Faith vs. fear. What your reaction is entirely up to you! You can choose faith and hope to God that everything will work together for good or you can choose fear and jump at your own shadow.

I’ve chosen faith. Faith, not on my abilities, but that God will take care of me. The way I see all things is this: I’ll pray and if God gives me what I ask for, His name will be praised; If God does not answer my prayer the way I want Him to, His will be done! With that in mind, how in the world will I lose? For some, it’s just a matter of putting a spin on things so that the glass will always appear to be half-full. For me, it’s a little more than that. For me, the glass is ALWAYS FULL, even overflowing, I just can’t see the other half….

Admittedly, fear just can’t be helped. It’s the default reaction and sadly, even I sometimes react fearfully. What do I do to shake the feeling off? I just tell my self, “Ryan, it’s just a choice! It entirely depends on you!” And then I’ll choose faith again…and again…and again. Hopefully in the future, I’ll program my self to change my default reaction to faith.