When You Move Beyond Your Fear, You Feel Free

 

John [16:13] – Live fearlessly guided by the Spirit.

WHEN YOU MOVE BEYOND YOUR FEAR, YOU FEEL FREE

When we listen to Jesus, perhaps he heals us supernaturally. Or perhaps his life lessons heal us. Both can be true. Sometimes the solution is simply asking ourselves, “What would Jesus do?” It may seem trite to say this is all we have to do. It is perhaps too simple. Perhaps It is an overused platitude. But this question is still immensely valid in reframing our lives and circumstances. “What would Jesus do?”

Part of the value of the Gospels is that they lay out for us the lessons of life that Jesus wants us to follow. When we are stuck in trying to solve a problem and our method of solving isn’t working, we have to change the method. Many times our solutions don’t happen because we habitually use the same method over and over again. If we want to be healed, we have to change our methods.

In the business book Who Moved My Cheese? there are four characters: two mice, Sniff and Scurry, and two humans, Hem and Haw. Each day the four went to a cheese pile and ate. Over time the pile dwindled and eventually disappeared. Hem and Haw, while noticing the pile was dwindling, did little to find more cheese. Sniff and Scurry set out and found a new cheese station. As time moved on and the cheese pile continued to dwindle, Hem and Haw became terrified, and resorted to anger, denial, and blaming to account for their situation. They debated and discussed their next moves, but couldn’t get themselves to move.

As hunger became a real issue, they eventually started looking for a new pile. The process was laborious and tedious. They debated endlessly their various options. Eventually, Hem found the new pile that Sniff and Scurry had told them about, called Cheese Station N. As their mindset began to change, Hem and Haw thought of questions like “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” and ideas such as “When you move beyond your fear, you feel free.” Slowly, over time, they began to reframe their view of life and to recognize the need to constantly look at things differently. They became well by reframing their lives.

Blessings, until next time,
Bruce L. Hartman

Photo by Naveen Chandra on Unsplash