My Native Air

I am inwardly fashioned for faith, not for fear. Fear is not my native land; faith is. I am so made that worry and anxiety are sand in the machinery of life; faith is the oil. I live better by faith and confidence than by fear, doubt and anxiety. In anxiety and worry, my being is gasping for breath—these are not my native air. But in faith and confidence, I breathe freely—these are my native air.

A John Hopkins University doctor says, “We do not know why it is that worriers die sooner than the non-worriers, but that is a fact.” But I, who am simple of mind, think I know; We are inwardly constructed in nerve and tissue, brain cell and soul, for faith and not for fear. God made us that way. To live by worry is to live against reality.

Dr. E. Stanley Jones (Source unknown)

Too frightened not to pray

What if every church business meeting began with a reading of that passage (Ephesians 6:12-18) from Paul? What if pastors, elders, and deacons really believed we were in the midst of a raging spiritual battle in which the stakes, the territory being fought over, is none other than ourselves and our people? What confidence would we place then in our organizational charts, lines of accountability and authority, budget reports, and plans for the Labor Day picnic? My hunch is that we’d all be too frightened not to pray.

(Ben Patterson and David L. Goetz, vol. 7, Deepening Your Conversation With God, The pastor’s soul series; Library of leadership development; Minneapolis, Minn.: Bethany House Publishers, 1999, 33.)