Denise Lee Porter

As the recession deepens more and more people are beginning to feel the effects. Those who retired with a healthy pension or 401K are seeing those accounts dwindle. Creditors have no sympathy for the unemployed and the newly underemployed who in the recent past fearlessly accumulated debt that did not match what they had saved.  Are you afraid to answer the phone because you know that a creditor is on the other end of that line? Do you gaze fondly upon the things  in your home and worry that you may not be able to keep it all; that maybe you won’t even be able to keep your home? Do you worry about a government takeover of health care, the auto industry and the banks on one hand; while on the other hand you worry that you won’t qualify for unemployment or medicare for much longer?

If fear is the opposite of faith and is by it’s very nature a sin, then allow me to propose that those who feed us fear propaganda are inviting us to lose what little faith we have left and engage in a sin with them. All is not lost, because in the same way that we have learned the art of being Fear- full, so can we reverse that and learn to again be Faith-full.

When our debts outweigh our bank accounts and there is no relief in sight, we begin to cast around in our minds for the act that we committed which has brought this punishment down on our heads. This reflects the fear of punishment that has stayed with us from childhood, we have this idea that we will either be rewarded or punished for every act. And when we find ourselves standing on the verge of losing everything, we assume that our day of reckoning has come; that someone is tallying the good and bad that we’ve done and meting out punishment based on the balance.

In my teenage years I sang in the church choir, there is one line from one song that resonated so strongly, that several decades later it still sustains me:

“We’ve come this far by Faith, leaning on the Lord, trusting in his Holy Word…He’s never failed me yet”

What we forget is that God is the Giver and also the Forgiver, if we first forgive ourselves, so will we in turn be forgiven. Our fear of the future is based on our lack of belief in ourselves (confidence) and the healing power of God’s Love.  Darkness flees an empty room when we turn on the light. Faith is your light and if you turn on your Faith, you will find that all of your Fears have “dissolved into their native nothingness”.

“Fear not little flock for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.”~ Luke 12:32