Fear is not real; it’s a lens through which you can come to see the world. Events are real, but not when they are imagined. Most imagined events never come to be; many real events were never imagined.

Fear is nothing more than a mental projection of the future that sees the glass as half-empty. Often it appears to be the result of rational analysis, but it is in fact entirely emotional.

Sudden reactions of fear are easily managed, but a pervasive life-attitude of fear is insidious. Waking up morning after morning with the nagging thought I might not make ends meet today will lead you to a dreadful degeneration of soul; likewise the thoughts I might not be pretty enough today; I might not work hard enough today; I might not be good enough today.

For those of us who claim to be Christians, this twists our noble minds into tired machines with only one output: fear. Hello, we were made for something better: joy.

I never understood the word faith until I had learned the meaning of fear. Faith is not a declaration of willful placement of trust, but an admittance of a lack of will in the matter. Do you get it? A willful placement of trust is actually an act of fear, an attempt to control your world and get things in order. True faith says nothing to God but I present myself.

God, I do not even choose to trust you. When I do this, I do it under my own power, believing in my own will, trying to get my ducks in a row by bringing you back into my life. All I do now is turn around, find you there just like before, and acknowledge that you are.