Max Lucado's Fearless, Part 1

It's not the absence of storms that sets us apart. It's whom we discover in the storm: an unstirred Christ.
Max Lucado, Fearless p. 8.

I was one fourth through this book and I just realized something, God's love encompasses all things, it gives no place to doubt.

It's like someone loving someone so much, they are blind to imperfection - maybe that's why they say that love is blind. Of course it's not blind, loving someone completely and without fear and without a trace of doubt makes someone understand the blunders more easily than the ones who don't. They don't focus on the mistakes, they focus on the goodness of the person. Just like the way God loves us.

"Jesus loves us too much to leave us in doubt about his grace. His 'perfect love expels all fear' (1 John 4:18 NLT)"

Along the pages, I've noted these:

PRAYER WHEEL © Beatricela... | Dreamstime.com

Dear Father, I need forgiveness. I admit that I have turned away from you. Please forgive me. I place my soul in your hands and my trust in your grace. Through Jesus I pray, Amen.

Jesus told us:

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. (Luke 11:9 NIV)

If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be given to you. (John 15:7 NIV)

Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you hve received it and it will be yours. (Mark 11:24 NIV)

Worry Stoppers:

1. Pray first.
2. Easy, now.
3. Act on it.
4. Compile a worry list.
5. Evaluate your worry categories.
6. Focus on today.
7. Unleash a worry army.
8. Let God be enough.
   

And one of the things that struck me is this:

Don't be afraid. Just believe, and your daughter will be well. Luke 8:50

This particular verse sink within me. I have a daughter and truth is, paranoia accompanies me sometimes. She's my only daughter, and seeing so much violence in the outside world makes me want to protect from it all the time. Then I remember my mom, whom I know prays for me all the time. I am well. This time, more fervently, I'm going to do the same not only to my daughter but for my sons as well. I just have to trust them and believe with God's blessings.

C.S. Lewis on Faith:

Faith...is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods. For moods will change, whatever view your reason takes. I know that by experience. Now that I am a Christian, I do have moods in which the whole looks very improbable; but when I was an atheist I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable...That is why Faith is such a necessary virtue; unless you teach your moods 'where they get off', you can never be either a sound Christian or even a sound atheist, but just a creature dithering to and fro, with its beliefs really dependent on the weather and the state of its digestion.

Feed your fears, and your faith will starve.
Feed your faith,m and your fears will.

It is noted in the book that when we think of HOPE think of this 'quintet of promises':

HOPE © Alptraum | Dreamstime.com

1. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.
2. His mercies never come to an end.
3. They are new every morning.
4. Great is thy faithfulness.
5. The Lord is my portion.