If we fear, “especially when we thought we had overcome fear, we can be thankful that these fears have surfaced, because we have the opportunity to reassert our faith and fearlessness, and banish even the trace of fear.
“No person has ever been completely without fear, but every person can learn to handle fear when it arises, can turn fear into faith, into courage, into positive thoughts, and feelings, and actions.”
The phrase, “Fear not,” which appears in the Bible approximately 79 times, “is an assurance needed not only by the weak or the wavering; it is an assurance needed by the brave, the strong, and the courageous.
“ . . . Fear in itself has no power except the power we give it through our thoughts. We take away its power, we put it to rout, as we know that there is nothing to fear, that we are never alone, that always God is with us.
“God within us says to us: ‘Fear not!’”
— Rev. Martha Smock, former editor of Daily Word
— From Fear Not, a collection of her writing, © 1986
