Peace…the Absence of Fearful Considerations.

I don’t think you would find it a stretch if I said that everyone is after peace of mind.  We make more and more money in attempt to find peace.  We buy life insurance with the hopes of ensuring peace for our loved ones.  We take trips into nature to enjoy the peace that we believe we will find there.  And for good reason, right?  Who doesn’t enjoy a sense of calmness on the inside.  Who doesn’t appreciate the wonder of undisturbed, untroubled waters within?  Who could possibly be against having “ease of being?”  Well, there’s something very simple, yet profound in its effects, namely that peace is simply the absence of fearful considerations.  I remember writing not too long ago that often success and happiness in life come not so much from the things we do, but more from the things we don’t do.  So, I’ll get back to that in a minute.  First indulge me in a short rant about fear…

Contrary to what you may have been taught, fear is your greatest enemy.  Fear isn’t healthy!  Fear isn’t natural!  Fear isn’t normal!  The first man Adam didn’t have any fear.  Maybe you should read that again!  Adam didn’t have any fear in any way for any reasons, that is until he went against (in typical human fashion) the one thing God told him not to do!  And by doing so, introduced the great enemy of mankind with fear following closely on his coat-tails.  Fear had an origin.  But don’t get it twisted, fear is never right.  Fear is unhealthy in every way.  It is decidedly unnatural and abnormal.  But, we don’t think to be true.  You know why?  Because this whole world we live in runs on fear; feeds on fear; brings fear and promotes fear!  Advertisements make you afraid so you will buy something.  Politicians scare the hell out of you with made up stories about pending disaster; to protect you?  Never!  To get more votes and power and influence; always!  Fear, fear, fear…  We wonder why people are deluged with anxiety.  We’ve been completely overun by fear.

So, what exactly is the solution?  Not what you might think, I fear (pun intended).  With all of that talk about facing your fears and feeling your fears; there’s another way to go.  Refuse your fear.  Fear at it’s core level is a weapon used by the enemy of righteousness to enslave people.  When you are afraid , not much happens.  Fear slows life down to a snail’s pace.  Fear, which issues in unbelief or negative belief, is the only thing that cuts you off from receiving God’s help by causing you not to believe and thus get defeated. But here is where it gets tricky on you.  Fear is actually a temptation; a temptation to do something contrary to God’s will – fear.  And like any temptation, it gathers power by your consideration of it.  Think about the last time something made you feel afraid.  Chances are you had the thought, it scared you and then you felt like you couldn’t let it go.  By God, you were going to solve it by analyzing it from every angle frantically searching for a solution.  Did you solve it that way?  Nope!  Chances are you gave away x-amount of time until some other consideration came along and maybe you let it go.  But, while you were in that period of fearful consideration, your life was officially on hold.  That’s how fear and its source gains power over you.  In order for fear to defeat you it needs your help or your vote if you will.  And you give it entrée by considering it.  Notice the next time something makes you afraid how difficult it feels to simply let it go.  Yet trusting God is all about letting it go.  And if you’re honest, doubt, worry and fear don’t prepare you for some pending doom, they just catastrophize things in your mind.

So like I said earlier, when it comes to fear it’s all about what you don’t do or refuse to do, more than what you do-do.  Refuse to give those fear thoughts any consideration.  I mean get really serious about it.  Stop running all of that disaster through your mind.  Stop counting up and cataloguing everything that can go wrong and just live.  Don’t give those thoughts your attention.  That’s not Pollyanna, that’s belief.  Like 50 Cent once said so eloquently, “It seems kind of insulting to God to pray about something then spend all your time worrying about how it won’t happen for you!”  (And you thought he was just a rapper!)

And here is something that will happen that will absolutely blow your mind.  If you got real serious about refusing those thoughts, you will start to experience this really, really odd feeling – peace.  You will have a calmness on the inside that you have always dreamed of.  You will catch of glimpse of how God always wanted you to feel.  But ya gotta do it, to get it.  You have to take your mind by the ears and make it obey.  Sure facing your fears is effective.  Absolutely deciding to keep moving despite feeling afraid is good for you.  But, nothing is as effective as simply refusing to do it.  REFUSE!

So the next time the enemy whispers some fearful consideration in your ear, don’t take it on by considering it.  Take it on by adamantly refusing it.  God will always, always come through for you, but He needs you to obey.  Life can become pretty scary, especially when others depend on you, but fear always was and always will be a grand illusion.  What can’t God repair or heal or restore?  What?  (I’ll wait…)

At the end of the day, peace is the absence of fear…

Just some good thoughts…