No More Fear

I was praying on the way in to work this morning and through a chain of related thoughts and conversations, I wound up thinking about fear.  Not the fear that we read about in the Bible in regard to God, but fear in regard to being afraid of things.  In particular, I was thinking about my tendency to avoid confrontation.  Often times, out of fear I will refrain from voicing my opinion or even sharing information out of fear that the person that I am talking to may not agree or may see me different.  Fortunately, there is one (outside of immediate family) I can tell everything to without fear of them seeing me different.  (2 counting Jesus Christ :-))  I won't say who the one is out of consideration.

Anyway, in regard to fear.  Scripture says that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind.  In my regard, I fear very little.  I rarely am of afraid of physical harm, and have even recognized an authority that God has given us in regard to the things in the earth.  God has given us the authority, why not use it.  So if a bird flies in the house, instead of panicking I simply tell it to fly back out.  God has shown Himself in this regard on enough occasions that I don't even question it.

Financially, God has made certain promises that are tied to giving.  I follow/believe what He says and He has shown himself in this regard as well, so I am not fearful in the amount of money that I do or don't have.

The one thing that continues to make me fearful is attached to another issue that I have been dealing with, pride.  Because of how I want people to see me, I often times will refrain from saying things or from voicing my opinion or desires.  I don't want to provoke confrontation so I often attempt to avoid it by being silent.  While I fully believe there are sometimes when you need to be quiet, I have found there are other times that silence has proven to work against me.

My commitment to God and myself today was to not let fear control what I say and or do.  He says He didn't give that spirit to me, so if I have it to any degree, it must have come from somewhere else.  Simply unacceptable!