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The Proper Place for Fear
Weekly Edition #47: December 17th, 2025
Verse I Like:
“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”
Weekly Dose
Fear is often misunderstood as something to be eradicated rather than a force to be overcome. As a feeling, it is inevitable. As a guide, it is unreliable.
When fear is treated as decisive, it reshapes priorities and narrows vision. What begins as caution quietly becomes avoidance.
But, it is written “Do not be afraid,” not “Do not feel afraid.” Fear will come, but it is up to us to choose to overcome, trusting in the one who can. After all, how else can courage arise if there is no fear to be conquered?
It is in moments like these that we learn whether fear will inform our actions or define them. Choose correctly and have faith.
Faith over fear.
Quotes I Like:
“In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing.
The worst thing you can do is nothing.”
“The individual who cannot consciously assimilate his fear is forced to experience it as fate.”
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.”
Mane Message
Joshua becomes the leader of Israel after Moses. Moses, as part of his punishment, does not make it into the promised land. He dies as the Israelites are about to cross the Jordan into the promised land.
It is truly a moment of transition and tension. But this moment is not new territory.
Decades earlier, Israel stood in this same position. Spies were sent into the land land promised to Israel, and they returned with reports of giants, fortified cities, and overwhelming odds. That earlier generation felt fear, and allowed it to shift them away from obedience. As a result, they wandered the desert until that generation was gone.
God had taken the Israelites out of Egypt, though he also had to take the “Egypt” out of Israel.
And Joshua knows this history. As do the people. How can Joshua and this new generation course correct away from this inherited proclivity towards disobedience.
God does not tell Joshua to make the fear disappear. He commands him not to be afraid. This is not a distinction for the sake of semantics. There is absolutely a difference here.
The feeling of fear is assumed. What is rejected is fear’s authority or giving the power to fear over the actions of the Israelites. The command is a directional orientation and recentering of what (or who) can actually overcome the immense fear.
God does not soften the reality before them or deny the strength of the enemy, but offers a way, through courageous obedience, to all that Israel had been promised.
Courage, in this sense, is the obedience in the face of fearfulness. It is not the absence of dread, but the refusal to let dread dictate action.
Don’t give fear power over your divine orientation.
Weekly Ponder
Would we not be better men if we were capable of overcoming and properly orienting our fears?
If we were to wait until our fears subsided before we took action, would we truly resist becoming slaves to our fears?
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