“Do not be afraid.”
finished through luke and one thought in particular struck me at our weekly prayer gathering last week. i was reminded of how often Jesus told people not to be afraid. i was struck by how many of our prayers can be motivated by fear. a desire to avoid hard scary circumstances rather than in faith moving forward in courage, confident of the character of God and that He really does care for us.
that said, i don’t mean that we shouldn’t be real or honest with our fears, fake it to make it style, but rather that we be honest, call em what they are and ask God for courage and faith to walk in. we’re not doomed to circumstance and the worst circumstances God can and often does redeem and teach through if we’ll listen.
jayne’s mom died, 1 year ago this past saturday. we’ve never been through anything harder and that hardness continues. but from the outset our prayer was that God would use that event somehow to draw people to him and specifically Jayne’s family. it’s been really unbelievable what has happened in the life of jayne’s dad. a lot has happened there, but in short God has made him into a new man. as cliche as that can sound, it’s absolutely true and a testimony to God’s ability to redeem the horrible and hard circumstances that come with living in a fallen world.
