Fear

I love how God will speak through friends and how at times it may not click immediately but when it does ... it's like ... duh :p!!

So my friend sent me this excerpt from Max Lucado's Fearless:

(p 85-86)

I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always.

One moment you are feeling calm, self-possessed, happy, then fear, disguises in the grab of mild-mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy. Doubt meets disbelief and disbelief tries to push it out but disbelief and disbelief tries to push it out. But disbelief is a poorly armed foot solder. Doubt does away with it with little trouble. You become anxious, reason comes to do battle for you. You are reassured. Reason is fully equipped with the latest weapons technology but to your amazement, despite superior victories, reason is laid low. You feel yourself weakening, wavering, your anxiety becomes dread ...

Quickly you make rash decisions. You miss your last allies; hope and trust. There you've defeated yourself. Fear, which is but an impression, has triumphed over you.

Pi realizes that fear cannot be reasoned with. Logic doesn't talk fear off the ledge or onto the airplane. So what does? How can one avoid that towel-in-the-ring surrender to the enemy? Pi gives this counsel:

You must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of the word upon it. Because if you don't, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.

OH MY GOODNESS

When I read it, and my spirit was open to receiving it ... BAM!!!

So now just wait and see ...