Article by Dr. Les Hollon, Pastor, St. Matthews Baptist Church

Living requires courage.

Courage for you to be the person whom God is creating you to be.  Courage to do that which God is calling you to do.  Along the way of courage, fear always shows up.

God speaks directly to our fears.  David wrote in Psalm 23:4, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for the Lord is with me; thy rod and thy staff they do comfort me.”  In the shadow lands - not able to see clearly, overcast by death - temptation lurks to give way to evil.  But David, reassured by God, said fear would not control him.

Putting one foot in front of the other is the key to getting through the valley of the shadow.  Trusting God with each moment of every day means that the Shepherd, not evil, will see us through.

Fear paralyzes us in the grip of the shadow.  Faith frees us to walk with enough light to see & feel safe in God’s rod & staff.

Left to ourselves there is a lot to fear.  We live in a world where there is no perfect safety net that catches us from everything.  Our society is characterized as the information age, in which the knowledge base that we have now may only be 3 percent of what we will have in 2020.  The average American changes his/her address every seven years, and with most people changing jobs seven times before retirement, there are future challenges people may fear.  

Even so … we may have a confidence, in the midst of momentary fear, that as we follow the Shepherd our fear turns into faith, and our faith into faithfulness.

Pastor Les Hollon

“We don’t want to feel helpless, so we use fear, anger, addiction … to block out our helpless feelings.  The fact is that if we cannot openly face our feeling of helplessness, we cannot receive help.  It is important that we accept our helplessness, taking it to God and allowing Him to be strong where we are weak.  When we let Him be God, we receive continuous healing …”
-David F. Allen

This article was written by Les Hollon, Pastor of St. Matthews Baptist Church.  For more information about turning fear to courage through faith, St. Matthews Baptist Church, or to contact Dr. Hollon, click over to St. Matthews Baptist Church.

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