A Life Without Fear

What would your life be like if you lived it without fear?

• How much more would you be?
• How much more would you see?
• How much more would you have?
• How much more would you share?

So many of us live our lives haunted by fears related to negative messages or mistakes made in the past. And we’re afraid to dream a better future for ourselves. After all, what if we’re wrong? We might end up disappointed. How terrible!

For the longest time, I used to always tell myself, “If only I could conquer my weight problems, then I could do anything!”

But you know what? As long as I kept telling myself, “If only…” then nothing changed. Because the unspoken message behind “if only” was the fear “…but I know I can’t.”

When you allow fear to rule you and say “I can’t” to your dreams, then you shut the door to any possibility of success. You shut out hope. You shut out creative solutions. You shut out any person who might be able to help you.

I think about how Jesus couldn’t do many miracles in his own hometown (see Matthew 13:53-58) simply because the people would not believe. Because they held on to their limited beliefs about him from the past, they shut the door on their future blessing.

What dreams have you shut the door on by living in fear rather than faith? It’s time to open the door to new possibilities! To start the process, take these steps:

1. Admit the fear: “I am afraid of __________________.”

2. Ask yourself: “If I wasn’t afraid of __________________ what would I be doing right now?”

3. Make a plan: “What steps can I take to live as if____________wasn’t an issue?”

4. Take a small step: “What is the easiest step I can take on my list to chop that fear down to size?”

Then take that step. Every time you act in faith rather than fear, you feed your faith and starve your fear. Your confidence grows. Your character sharpens and enables you to do far more than you ever thought you could. What a feeling!

So make that your new mantra: “Feed the Faith, Starve the Fear.”