Fear

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
2 Timothy 1:7

For many years I lived in a constant state of fear.  I was afraid of being alone, of people rejecting me, of failure, fearful of not living up to God, and much more.  I never thought about fear and what it was doing to me and how it was impacting the decisions I was making in my life.  I made decisions out of fear.  I would way out my fears and then make my decisions.  I look back on those times and wonder how things would have been different had I been willing to trust God.  I heard it put today that fear is just satans way of taking our wonderful imaginations that our Creator God gave us and twisting it to manipulate us.  It is so true.  Just think about today what decisions have you made that were out of fear.  Did you not do something that you should have out of fear.  Or maybe, you are and continue to do something you should not do out of fear. Think about it.  God has shown you things in your life right now, just as he is showing me areas that I need to surrender.  Fear is sinful!  It separates us from God.  It gives satan the ability to control our lives.  God can be trusted! It is in His power that we can overcome whatever comes our way.  It is His love for us that drives the fear away.  When we are surrendered to Him whatever happens we need not fear for again we can trust Him.  We often have fear in our lives because we are not surrendered to our Father.  We are living and trusting our own ways.  Peter started walking out across the water, but when he took his eyes off of Jesus the fears that surrounded him caused him to start sinking. He started trusting in himself and not on Jesus.  Our Lord God has to be our focus if we are ever going to be able to overcome fear.  We can not half way focus our lives on Him.  We have to every second focus on direct eye contact with Jesus.  How sad is it to think of living your entire life, looking back and realizing that you limited God in your life because you were just scared. Is it not wonderful to know that He can deliver us from fear if only we surrender ourselves to Him. 
I will not sit here and say that I am not ever afraid.  I still am, everyday, but it is how I respond to the fear that has changed today.  When fear asails me my first inclination now is to pray for repentence if the fear is due to my rebellion.  If it is fear of the unknown it is to pray for God to fill me with the peace that comes from His presence.  The peace that comes from knowing that no matter what comes He is there.  He will handle it.  God calls it, "a sound mind".