Are your fears realistic?

“Therefore ye are justified of faith and works through grace to the end.” (Romans 4:16) We are vindicated, pardoned of our sins because of our faith, which begins with a hope, a belief of something greater than ourselves. When hope, belief and faith grow and are strengthened into works; or in other words when we change our behavior, our lives to reflect what we believe that faith or theory if you will, either becomes confusion or knowledge. Once it becomes knowledge we have no more need of faith.

Example: I hope our team will win the tournament. So I look at the possibilities. Well we are strong in this area, but not so strong with this. Maybe if we change this and that our team might have a chance. Hey, that worked. Now I believe we are in the running. We do the work. We practice, eat right, get ourselves individual and as a team in shape. Now I have faith we will win the tournament. We work hard and it comes down to the tournament it’s self. Are there doubts? Look deep. Not what we hope will happen, not what we wish will happen, but what does our heart, our gut, our insides tell us? That is how the Holy Spirit speaks to us. Sometimes, we have random thoughts. Learn to discern is that the Holy Spirit speaking to us or is it the other guy? Do we have doubts and fears? Are those doubts realistic?

I am claustrophobic and one day a water pipe sprung a leak under the house. My husband crawled under the house and fixed the pipe. The next day he called me from work and said would you crawl under the house and see if that pipe is still leaking? Claustrophobic fear came over me. “No,” I answered.

 “Why not?” he asked.

 “Because the house might fall on me.” Even as I answered I knew that was not a realistic fear. If it was really, really important I can and have crawled into small spaces but I’m not comfortable doing so. Is your fear realistic?

Are you afraid the other team might win the tournament because they are great players? Then they might actually win. That doesn’t mean that if you push aside that doubt and pretend it doesn’t exist that you will win. Neither is it absolutely certain that if you have faith to the very end that you will win. When you win then you have knowledge that you did win that game and you no longer need faith – for that game. But there will be other games. We have these small victories in our lives that teaches that yes, prayers are answered, and yes, miracles do happen. By these things we gain knowledge that God lives, Jesus is the Christ, the Holy Spirit can guide us, the Scriptures are true, and much, much more.