What To Do If Fear Gets The Best Of You?

March 12, 2020March 12, 2020 Live Today With Faith2 Comments

coro

Being a man of great faith, it takes a lot to get to me, but even I needed a few words of faith the other day. I’ve had a head cold for a couple of weeks that I can’t shake off, with every other conversation being about the Coronavirus and it all over the media, fear started to creep in.

On a phone call to my mother, parents always seem to sense when you’re not yourself, she said what was needed to restore my faith. She highlighted to me that Coronavirus has been on cleaning supplies labels for years. This is just another strain.

Of course, it’s essential to take preventative measures to make sure yourself and family are safe, but it’s important to remember that your future has already been planned out.

For me, this outbreak is to make people aware of what matters, health, family and friends. Everything else is just noise.

Seeing The Sun When the Sky is Grey

As the saying goes, every cloud has a silver lining. Maybe the silver lining here is to make us reflect on what matters in life, the signal, them things that you can’t live without.

When it boils down to it, social media, technology, and money are meaningless if you haven’t got your health, if you are without the people that give your life purpose.

Take time with those that matter and let them know how much you care, how much they mean to you.

When it comes down to it, love and health are the bedrock of a successful life.

So like me, if fear starts knocking at the door what do you do? In my opinion, the solution is to strengthen your faith.

People that look fit and healthy maintain their bodies by eating healthy and taking regular exercise. Faith is no different. At certain times in life we need to have stronger faith to overcome the obstacles in our path.

To keep fear at bay, you need complete trust that all will be ok. Trust that God will not let anything come into your path that is not part of your destiny. And if something does, that it will strengthen your character and make you better in some way.

I would like to share with you 5 method that I used to strengthen my faith and keep it at its highest level.

5 Simple Ways To Strengthen Your Faith In Times Of Uncertainty

1. TRUST

We must trust God in all things, have complete trust and complete confidence. If we have faith in God feelings of worry, stress, anxiety, fear, and doubt should never surface.

If we have faith in God, then we completely trust that He will provide everything we need when it’s needed. Not only do we trust Him to provide provision, but we are completely confident that He will provide us with a healthy life as well!

Matthew 6:25-27
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

We have to remove doubt from our hearts, replacing it with belief, and trust Him! In doing so our faith will grow stronger and stronger as we see Him lead us in the directions we are truly meant to go.

2: PRAY

Mark 11:23 instructs us to pray without doubt in our hearts, and believe that what we say will happen. In the same verse Jesus says that if we do this, it will be done for us.

Daily prayer centres our minds on what really matters , it invites God into our lives and helps us establish a deeper trust. Our faith will grow when we make prayer a centre part of our day.

Pray for love, health and happiness, the essential ingredients of a successful life.

The best time to pray is in the morning as the sun rises, in the stillness of the morning the world is so peaceful and calm. Sitting in the presence of nature is like sitting in the presence of God.

3: READ SCRIPTURES

We must make time to sit down and read the word of God. We need His Word inside our minds and in our hearts. Knowing God’s Word goes hand in hand with trusting God and praying.

Read His promises, and then have great faith that they will come to pass. Pray them over your life. In God’s Word we will find strength, hope, love, peace, and joy.

We will also find promises of provision, and instructions to keep us away from harm. We will gain wisdom, knowledge, and understanding in our lives through His instructions.

Read Matthew 17:20… and then believe that faith can move mountains.
Read Philippians 4:19… and have faith that God will supply all your needs.
Read Malachi 3:10… and believe that if God is first in your life He will pour out blessings for you until they overflow.
Read Ephesians 6:10-17… and know that you have The Amour of God, what can possibly come against you.

I’ve made a rule for myself, that has helped me greatly. Until I’ve read for 30 minutes a day, no social media, no internet, and no T.V. God’s Word has to be priority in our lives if we want to strengthen our faith.

4: LIVE OUT HIS WORD

I think our world would be a better place if the people who claim to be Christians acted like Christians. I understand this statement is incredibly blunt, but it’s how I feel.

Jesus main message was one of faith, love and forgiveness, yet I know people who don’t speak to their neighbours, or some family members, that go to church. It makes no sense to me, come to hear Gods word but not listen to it?

No one is perfect, i know, but we have to commit to grow in our faith and commit to living out His Word. Make your goal to be better than you were yesterday.

5: BE THE LIGHT

You are the light of the world, so shine bright. We are to be loving and caring towards each other. We are to be encouraging and build one another up. We should be joyful people who don’t spend our days complaining.

We should practice thankfulness and be forgiving. Im Mark 11:25, Jesus stated that when we pray, we must not hold anything against anyone, but we are to forgive, so our Father can forgive us of our sins.

We must be giving off our time, our talents, and our treasures. When people see you, let them not only see a person that is a believer in God, but let them see a person that shows that faith in their lives.

Let your actions draw people closer to God.

Wake up each day with the intent to do good. To spread light, not darkness, it’s really that simple. Give compliments freely, smile kindly, give generously, don’t complain, speak only kind words, and never tear people down.

Fear can get to the best of us, and if it does, you must learn to put your attention back on God, through prayer, walking in nature, and reading his word.

Do you know someone who would be encouraged by this post? If so, please share! By doing so, you are helping spread faith into a world that is currently full of fear. 🙂

6 Steps How to Stop Worrying

January 13, 2018March 13, 2020 Live Today With Faith4 Comments

You’ve attended the interview it seemed to go well, but you’re waiting with worry to hear back from them. You had an extra slice of cake with your afternoon tea and you’re worried if it was one too many for the waistline you’re watching.

Or maybe you’re about to go have a nice evening out with your friends and you’re worried whether it will rain. The common denominator in all these things is that you’re worrying about things you can’t change – so stop worrying!

You’ve already attended the interview so you’ve done what you can to get the job. You’ve already eaten the cake so there’s no point beating yourself up for it when it’s already in the tummy. And the weather is uncontrollable so worrying about isn’t going to change it.

How often do you worry about things you can’t change?

Probably a few times a day – if not more. This creates unnecessary additional stress for both your body and mind, and also prevents the joy and enjoyment you can experience today.

Matthew 6:25-26
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?

So it’s time you learned to stop worrying. Let’s start by looking at what research has said about worrying in general:

About 85% of the things we worry about never happen.
If what we worry about does happen, 80% of us said we handled the outcome better than we thought we would.
People who let go of worries instead of stressing over them are much healthier than those who don’t.

So how do you let go of this worrying that sometimes drives you crazy – especially when you’re worrying about things you have no control over?

Try the six strategies below to stop worrying once and for all – there’ll be a time and a place for each of them.

call a friend

Number One – Call a friend to talk about your worry.

Talking about your worry will help you get your head straight about whether your worry is realistic, worth worrying about, and something you can actually do anything about.

It will help you understand that there’s no point worrying about it if the outcome is out of your hands. Talking will offload some of the weight you carry around.

prayering-image

Number Two – Time with God.

Learning to take time each with God. Being aware of His presence through prayer and stillness will help you keep your mind focused on what you’re doing now rather than worrying about things you can’t change.

Even 10 minutes of sitting down just focusing on your breathing, has been shown to reduce everyday stress.

Number Three – Accept uncertainty & learn to thrive in it.

The beauty of life is in how unpredictable it is – you never quite know what’s around the corner! Learn to embrace this uncertainty and thrive in it. Who knows, it could even bring some exciting new opportunities you never even thought about. Put your heart and soul into the things you care about, and work hard on achieving your dreams. That’s all you can do. The rest is up to God.

distract3

Number Four – Distract yourself with another activity.

Really can’t seem to get it out of your head? Go do something completely unrelated and different that forces you to focus on something else. This is most effective if you choose an activity that you get fully immersed in, such as practicing your hobby or reading an exceptional book.

For example, I’m able to escape the world when I take my dog for a walk in the forest – just spending time with him takes my mind away from other things.

exerise

Number Five – Exercise!

Doing some kind of exercise you enjoy will give you a break from your worries whilst reducing the levels of your stress hormones, stimulating the production of feel-good brain chemicals, and improving your self-image.

If you’re struggling to get your mind to be quiet during exercise, put some music on in your headphones or push yourself even harder. When you challenge your body you will need to focus so you won’t be able to worry about anything else other than the exercise itself.

writing

Number Six – Have a designated worry time and worry notebook.

If you really want to take control of those worries and you’re finding that the above strategies don’t work, allow yourself to worry for a certain time period every day.

Spend time writing about all your worries in that notebook, and accept that when the time is up, the worrying has to stop. That way you will get them out of your head and onto paper, which research has shown is very effective in clearing your mind.

If you’re at least able to stop worrying about things you can’t change, you will be able to reduce your stress levels and boost your positive emotions. For the things you can change, do something about them, fight your worry with action!

For the things you can’t change, have a play with these six strategies and see how you get on with letting go of your worries!

Enjoy your weekend.

Rev J Martin

Don’t Worry

October 16, 2017 Live Today With Faith5 Comments

beautiful sunrise

Matthew 6:31-34

So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.