What do you need to do that scares you? I talked in a sermon a few weeks ago about, as a child, jumping off the high-dive at the city pool. It scared me as much as anything, but once I did it, I could do it again without any fear. There’s a quote that’s often attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt that says, “Do one thing every day that scares you.” What she actually said was a little longer and not as easy to quote: “You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” Many times the Bible says, “Do not be afraid.” Some have said it’s the most repeated command in the Bible, being mentioned 365 times. Of all the things the Bible tells us, we hear this, “Be not afraid” more than anything.
I realize fear can be a positive, if it keeps you safe. If you’re afraid of jumping off the roof, that fear is probably keeping you from breaking a leg. Fear, though, can confine us, keeping us from being who we could fully be. What are you afraid of? How might you face that fear and grow?
Grace & peace,
Jason Jones
