“Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him,
but the righteous shall live by his faith.” (Habakkuk 2:4 ESV)
In yesterday’s post, I mentioned that there were several things I’ve learned this year that have helped me to cope with fear. In the post, I only mentioned two of them:
- The passing of time. As time passes, the things we fear tend to move by us. However, this doesn’t work well if more fear causing things line up in front of us.
- Take no counsel from fear (or arrogance). This was the main subject of yesterday’s post.
But there is a third thing that I’ve learned this year that has helped me to cope with fear and many other things: learning to live by faith.
I mentioned a couple of weeks ago something that I heard from James Macdonald:
Everything is a test of faith. Everything. Therefore, everything will either grow our faith or shrink our faith.
Letting this permeate my being has been huge. I also discussed this in a post a couple of weeks back and wrote this:
When we believe this, it changes how we see the things happening in our lives — i.e. we see things as being allowed by God — and that change[s] the way we react to things. If we view events as us vs. life, our reactions can be hostile and volatile. But when we see things as being allowed by God, we are more likely to respond in a way that pleases God (or at least our chances better).
I haven’t lived this out perfectly, but I do live better and handle things better when I do remember this.
Husband Father Son 