FEAR & DISCOURAGEMENT

Boyd Bailey and his "Wisdom Hunters" online devotionals has had a significant impact on my life. His posts are truly filled with wisdom and solid, practical advice. I am constantly amazed at the remarkable relevance that his posts have for the circumstances of my life, divinely inspired and directed I believe. I submit below yet another of his posts received recently and which was and is so pertinent to where I find myself. I therefore acknowledge Boyd and his "Wisdom Hunters" devotionals in full for the post below.

Fear discourages. It discourages you from obedience to God. It discourages you from trusting God. It discourages you from enjoying God’s blessing. Fear is the great discourager. Discouragement resides in the back pocket of fear. They thrive on one another. You cannot have one without the other.

Your fear will lead you to discouragement, and your discouragement will lead you to fear. It is a vicious cycle of discontentment. The fearful love to recruit others to their side. Somehow this justifies their fearfulness. The fearful people in your life are normally the loudest. Their fears drive them to spread fear like wildfire. They tend to whip others into a fearful frenzy.

However, before you join their bandwagon of bad reports, check out their story. Make sure the facts support their fear. Indeed, fear is one of Satan’s most effective strategies. He is a promoter of fear. His goal is to preoccupy you in fear so that you do not face the realities of God’s peace and protection. God is with you. There is no need to fear.

In fact, if you continue in your fears, you are rebelling against the Lord. Your chronic state of fear is closing God out of your circumstances. God cannot be boxed out. He is with you whether you acknowledge Him or not. So, rise up from your fearful state and put on your confidence in Christ. His grace is sufficient.

He is working out all things for His purposes. Stay fixed on Him and your fears will subside. Be consumed with Christ and your cares will grow faint without fear. Do not feed fear. Starve it until it shrivels and dies. God has given you this vision. It is His gift to you. It is yours for the taking. Do not be discouraged over the timing of its culmination.

Your God-given vision may be dormant for now, but a dormant vision is not a dead vision. You may be experiencing a momentary pause for the sake of preparation. There are other people and resources that need cultivation and development. Your own maturity and capacity for responsibility needs expansion.

It is now that God is preparing you to handle the next steps of His vision for your life. Use this time of uncertainty to grow your faith and to drown your fears. There are two choices that invite you to decide daily. One is fear and the other is faith. Faith will trump fear if you let it. Faith is the heat that melts the cold, icy grip of fear. Faith in God frees you from the inertia of fear.

Fear discourages. Faith encourages. Fear flees. Faith stays. Fear gives up. Faith digs in. Fear questions. Faith trusts. Fear sees obstacles. Faith sees opportunities. Fear weakens. Faith strengthens. Use this test of your faith to go deeper with Christ. Untested faith weakens, but tested faith strengthens. Be encouraged. Fear is overrated. Faith in Christ is underrated. He is your confidence. In the face of fear He can be trusted!