{"id":21185,"date":"2022-03-29T09:50:23","date_gmt":"2022-03-29T13:50:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=21185"},"modified":"2022-03-29T10:05:46","modified_gmt":"2022-03-29T14:05:46","slug":"what-do-we-do-with-our-fear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=21185","title":{"rendered":"What Do We Do with Our Fear?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/As1UZM2AAnw\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em>Father Richard believes that we must learn to name and to live with our fears instead of merely denying them or projecting them onto others:\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Our age has been called the age of anxiety, and I think that\u2019s probably a good description for this time. We no longer know where our foundations are. <strong>When we\u2019re not sure what is certain, when the world and our worldview keep being redefined every few months, we\u2019re going to be anxious.<\/strong> <strong>We want to get rid of that anxiety as quickly as we ca<\/strong>n.\u00a0I know I do.\u00a0Yet, to be a good leader of anything today\u2014a good pastor, manager, parent, or teacher\u2014<strong>we have to be able to contain and hold patiently a certain degree of anxiety. Probably the higher the level of leadership someone has, the more anxiety they must be capable of holding.<\/strong> Leaders who cannot hold anxiety will never lead us anyplace new.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s probably why the Bible says \u201cDo not be afraid\u201d almost 150 times! I<strong>f we cannot calmly hold a certain degree of anxiety, we will always look for somewhere to expel it.<\/strong> Expelling what we can\u2019t embrace gives us an identity, but it\u2019s a negative identity. It\u2019s not life energy, it\u2019s death energy. <strong>Formulating what we are against gives us a very quick and clear sense of ourselves. Thus, most people fall for it.<\/strong> <strong>People more easily define themselves by what they are against, by whom they hate, by who else is wrong, instead of by what they believe in and whom they love. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I hope you recognize from this common pattern how different the alternative is. <strong>We might catch anew the radical and scary nature of faith,\u00a0because faith only builds on that totally positive place within, however small. It needs an interior \u201cYes\u201d to begin<\/strong>, just as the \u201cYes\u201d of Mary began the entire process of salvation. <strong>God needs just a mustard-seed-sized place that is\u00a0<em>in love<\/em>\u2014not fear<\/strong>\u2014that is open to grace, that is thrilled, that has found something wonderful.<\/p>\n<p><em>CAC teacher James Finley shares how Jesus is a model of how to say Yes in the midst of our deepest fear: \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus sweat blood because he was afraid [Luke 22:44]. It is possible that he was infinitely more afraid than we could ever be. But the difference is: <strong>Jesus was not afraid of being afraid, because he knew it was just fear. . . . We are afraid of fear because we believe that it has the power to name who we are, and it fills us with shame. . .<\/strong> .<\/p>\n<p>Jesus invites us to discover that our fear is woven into God\u2019s own life, <strong>whose life is mysteriously woven into all the scary things that can and do happen to us as human beings together on this earth.<\/strong> This is liberation from fear in the midst of a fearful situation.<\/p>\n<p>Sarah Young<\/p>\n<p>STOP TRYING TO WORK THINGS OUT before their times have come. <strong>Accept the limitations of living one day at a time. When something comes to your attention, ask Me whether or not it is part of today\u2019s agenda<\/strong>. If it isn\u2019t, release it into My care and go on about today\u2019s duties. When you follow this practice, there will be a beautiful simplicity about your life: a time for everything, and everything in its time. A life lived close to Me is not complicated or cluttered. <strong>When your focus is on My Presence, many things that once troubled you lose their power over you.<\/strong> Though the world around you is messy and confusing, remember that I have overcome the world. <strong>I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have Peace.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>ECCLESIASTES 3:1; Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of adversity come<\/p>\n<p>ECCLESIASTES 8:6\u20137; For there is a proper time and procedure for every matter, though a person may be weighed down by misery. \u2077Since no one knows the future, who can tell someone else what is to come?<\/p>\n<p>JOHN 16:33; I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Young, Sarah. Jesus Calling Morning and Evening Devotional (Jesus Calling\u00ae) (p. 182). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Father Richard believes that we must learn to name and to live with our fears instead of merely denying them or projecting them onto others:\u00a0 Our age has been called the age of anxiety, and I think that\u2019s probably a good description for this time. We no longer know where our foundations are. When we\u2019re [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21185"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21185"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21190,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21185\/revisions\/21190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}