Do you ever feel afraid and feel that no-one else could understand? ‘Fearfulness is universal’ says writer, Alexis Wright, winner of the 2007 Miles Franklin Award. Often, rather than deal with our fears we push them to the back of our minds and try and pretend they don’t exist. It doesn’t work. Or it might work for a while but not for long.
Fear can paralyze us. Stop us doing something. As we discovered in a recent blog, fear can pass down from one generation to the next unless we do something to stop the cycle. ‘Each of us has the potential to use our fears destructively against others and ourselves,’ said Alexis Wright in The Sydney Morning Herald June 30-July 1, 2007. Against ourselves? Yes. Stress or worry both have their roots in fear. How can this work destructively in our bodies?
Deborah Smith, Science Editor for the Sydney Morning Herald, reports that Sydney scientists believe chronic stress ‘can lead to obesity’ which in turn is a facet in cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer.
The antidote to fear and stress is prayer. The remedy for fear and stress is to believe Jesus. Often times this cannot be achieved easily. When my daughter was ill fears clamored for attention. The only way to keep them at bay was prayer and reading God’s Word. I can’t count the number of times the bible reading for the day spoke to me and soothed my fears.
It’s the same now, when fears want to intrude, I need to keep remembering and repeating God’s promises to us. To make sure we remember them, my husband and I have a couple pinned up on our fridge as a constant reminder. It’s always helpful to have committed God’s promises to memory.
Memory verses are not something reserved for children and Sunday school lessons but helpful for all of us no matter what age to learn. When our children were young we used to learn a memory verse which we stuck on the fridge. Interestingly enough, the children always learned the memory verse easier than we did. Perhaps it was because they were younger and their brain cells worked more effectively. Of course it could just be they went to the fridge more often than we did and so saw the verse more often.
Either way it is a good practice to get into memorizing God’s words, so when fearful or stressful times comes, you have something to give you an anchor and stop you drifting off into the depths of fear and despair. I know I’ve tried it. Tomorrow we’ll look at some specific verses and ways to use them to help in this.
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