973 Feed Your Faith

There is a battle within each of us. A battle between faith and fear. Faith inspires you to keep moving forward, while fear paralyzes you from taking future steps. One says ‘maybe this will be awesome’, while the other says ‘this could never possibly work.’ Which voice are you listening to? There’s an old fable called The Two Wolves. An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside of you – and inside every other person too,” The grandson thought about it for a minute and then he asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?” The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.” The voice of fear is within all of us. We all hear from the negative committee that meets in our head. We all feel the uncertainty of the future and the threat of what could be. Some of us are consumed by that voice, and some of us aren’t. What made the difference? Feeding it. When you feed that wolf it grows stronger and louder. Fear grows to consume us when we feed it our thoughts and surrender our actions. 365 times in the bible we are told to not fear, that’s one for every day. Yes, including today. Today is covered. Literally, this day is already covered by God. He has already gone before you and nothing will touch your life that hasn’t already passed through his hands. He is in the details and sovereign over everything concerning you. Why is God so intent on telling you every single day not to fear? Because it is the greatest threat against the life you were created for. This is how the enemy works to hinder your purpose and causes you to live little when you were created to live BIG. Fear. The threat that lives in your head and never even has to appear for real. What a cheap and easy trick of the evil one. He doesn’t really even have to do anything to hold you back, he just has to make you think about it. And when you think about it, you feed it. The wolf of fear grows bigger, and soon this powerhouse of a woman, this spirit carrying, almighty masterpiece that is YOU, is left in inaction and rendered incapable because of the voice of fear that was fed. The opposite of having fear is not to have no fear. It’s not to never hear the voice and never feel anxiety. It’s to have faith. Faith is not a blind assumption that everything is always going to be perfect for you. It’s not some supernatural power to never shake in your dang boots when you’re about to do something that terrifies you. Oh honey, faith will still let you shake. Faith will let you jump shaking. Faith will let you go afraid. Faith will strengthen you to do it scared. Fear says “this bad thing will happen and I won’t be okay.” So of course, when you listen to that voice and feed it with your thoughts and actions, life closes in, opportunities are wasted, you sit it out, and the BIG life you were created for is exchanged for something so much smaller. All because the voice of fear convinced you something bad was going to happen and you wouldn’t be okay. What does faith say? Is faith then the opposite? Does faith say, “nothing bad will ever happen to me”? Oh, if that’s what faith says, my guess is you’ve been disappointed. That kind of faith is tough to reason when the storms of life hit. God never promised bad things wouldn’t happen. He never promised you would be insulated from the har...