What you are looking at is the mirror on my truck after a night of sleet.  This photo is a couple of years old and was taken at my brother’s house in Flat Rock, Alabama.  The night before the sleet storm, I can remember how the forecast of the weather man predicted freezing rain, fallen power lines, impassible roads and snow.  If you are unfamiliar with this area, all the roads are country roads, there are no snow plows, and the smallest amount of ice or snow will close the roads and transform the most cautious into stunt drivers.

          When I woke up the next morning, I went to my truck and took this photo.  The promised storm as usual was not as bad as predicted and was entirely melted away by mid morning.  But there was something that stuck that morning; the fear and anxiety caused by the predictions of a winter storm lingered long after the ice had melted.  What is it that causes us to look for the worse things that can happen?  The worse the gossip, the easier it is for us to believe it.  We tend to belief the worse about people or the outcome of events?

          When we live our lives always looking at the negative side of things, something happens to us; anxiety, distrust and fear creep into our lives.  Anxiety is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained.  Fear places sand into the machinery of our lives and causes us to rust and to believe the worse in family, friends and circumstances.  Only man clogs his happiness with care, destroying what is, with thoughts of what may be.

          The good news is this; we have the ability to choose our attitudes and our outlook on life.  We can allow distrust and fear to freeze and paralyze our lives or we can choose to live a life of courage, freedom, kindness, contentment and faith.  The choice is yours. 

 
Something to think about:

• Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.

• One of the ways that our faith expresses itself is by our ability to be still, to be present, and not to panic or lose perspective. God still does his best work in the most difficult of circumstances.

• To have faith is to believe the task ahead of us is never as great as the Power behind us.

• Many of our fears are tissue-paper thin, and a single courageous step would carry us clear through them.

• The adventurous life is not one exempt from fear, but on the contrary one that is lived in full knowledge of fears of all kinds, one in which we go forward in spite of our fears.

• Believe your beliefs; doubt your doubts.

Your guy who believes in you
Rickey Moore