Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy
Welcome to Day 924 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.
This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom
Challenging Fear – Meditation Monday


Thank you for joining us today for our five days per week wisdom and legacy building podcast. We are broadcasting from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio. This is Day 924 of our trek, and it is time for Meditation Monday.

Taking time to relax, refocus, and reprioritize our lives is crucial in order to create a living legacy. For you, it may just be time alone for quiet reflection. You may utilize structured meditation practices. In my life meditation includes reading and reflecting on God’s Word and praying. It is a time to renew my mind, refocus on what is most important, and make sure that I am nurturing my soul, mind, and body. As you come along with me on our trek each Meditation Monday, it is my hope and prayer that you too will experience a time for reflection and renewing of your mind. 

I find that so many people are fearful today. Fear of the political situation. Fear of financial crises. Fear of health issues. Fear of abandonment. Fear of the future. There is a healthy fear that we should have of imminent danger, but most fear is not healthy. In our Meditation Monday today I want us to reflect on…
Challenging Fear
We are told in 1 John 4:18,"Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love."

Most of us struggle with fear of one sort or another at various seasons of life. Some mild, some serious, some healthy, and some unhealthy and self-defeating.

Healthy fear is a self-protective mechanism. We rightly fear (or should) driving through a red light or doing anything that could hurt us or others. Unhealthy fear is that which is caused by someone who hurt us deeply, especially when we bury and deny it. This fear can become floating anxiety and cause us to be fearful of everyday living, separate us from close relationships and cause loneliness, give us ulcers or other physical ills, or cause us to hide it and "protect" ourselves with anger.

Fears that are relatively harmless can often be overcome by doing the thing we fear and thereby reconditioning our response to the particular thing we fear.
Unhealthy or self-defeating fears need to be dealt with at their root cause. For example, if you were abused or abandoned as a child, you may be fearful of being treated the same way as an adult. Unless you face and resolve this fear, you will tend to either withdraw from close relationships or be attracted to people who will repeat the abuse or abandonment you experienced in the past. Sadly, the things you fail to resolve you are destined to repeat.

As today's Scripture points out, "Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear." Thus,

to be made perfect in love means we need to resolve any unhealthy fears. To do this, these fears need to be recognized and if repressed, they need to be brought into the conscious mind so they can be confronted and resolved.

Look at the symptoms in your life. Do you avoid close relationships? Is your life filled with anxiety? Are you an angry person? Do you have any impaired close relationships? Is your marriage a wreck? If any of these apply to you, chances are you may have unresolved fear. So when you pray, admit these and any other issues to God and ask him to give you the courage to see the root cause of these—and to lead you to the help you need to overcome these. Ultimately all unhealthy fear is rooted in our mindset and requires changing the way we think. The underlying cause is a lack of faith that God loves you and is ready and willing to help you.