Grow Faith not Fear

“You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith.”
—Mary Manin Morrissey

Fear is a natural part of us; it’s an essential element, in fact. Fear protects us at times, and it helps us to be cautious, keeps us from moving too fast into situations in our lives.

But fear can also be a block. It may block us from love. It can block our success and even attempts at things. And it can keep us from growth. We must recognize fear and allow ourselves to feel it when we know that it’s a healthy emotion at the time. But what we don’t want to do is hide behind that fear.

We may have tried and failed. Perhaps in relationships we have been hurt and we are just too scared to face that again. Or maybe we’ve had a business collapse or failed at a job where we were employed by others. That’s water under the bridge, not reason to give up because we fear we might lose or fail again.

There are a few things that can be very helpful when we are afraid to move forward: prayer and talking about our fears with someone else. God will hear us and help us through and give us courage. Our friends, mentors, clergy, therapists, or family members can help us just by listening and by talking through the issues. They can help us determine what valid things to fear are and what is just an imaginary boogeyman under the bed.

Our self-esteem and confidence will grow each time we walk through our fears. We will see that fear is not something we should empower in our lives. It is there. It may be there often, but it does not have control over us. We can be stronger than our fears and come out on the other side with renewed faith and success at that which we attempted.

Fear will only grow as large as you allow it, just as faith will do the same.