Saturday, March 26, 2016

The Mind Set on Faith Settles the Heart of Fear

MUCH experience of mental illness is a wandering and wavering mind tumbling over heartbreaking hurdles, listlessly, without purpose and with resignation, into an awaiting abyss.  It bequests living suicide.  A life not worth living.  And only one thing is missing.
Where joy is stripped from our being, through patches of life that seem easily to overwhelm, we travail in our heart and our mind goes vulnerably along for the ride.
The absence of joy should trigger our awareness of fear, for where joy is A.W.O.L., peace and hope fall dreadfully absent too.  The alarm bells ring.
All this is arrested when we rise with a mind of faith — a smart, courageous mind.
The mind set on faith settles the heart suffering in fear.  A mind, steadfast and faithful.
***
God knows why we fear.  It’s because our world is broken, our inner experience is flimsy, and the spiritual dimensions of life variegate.  Layers of our existence require faith in God.
Faith emanates out of the mind, unified by our decisive will, because of a heart set on the purposes of God.  Indeed, a mind set on the promises of God settles a heart committed to God’s purposes.  Such a mind backs its own heart.
Faith begins in the mind.  But fear is produced in the heart as the heart experiences felt realities it cannot control.  The mind reminds our being that God has promised to be with us, to never leave nor forsake us, and to give us hope for a future we believe for, and that He is entirely and abundantly good.
The mind buoys the heart, and yet the mind must first be tested by what the heart alone can feel.
Decide for God’s goodness in your mind, for God proves faithful by decisions of faith.
© 2016 Steve Wickham.

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