October Lessons

 

Mary Ludwig Hays—1754-1832  Confronting the enemy in a time when fear had to be overcome, at the Battle of Monmouth during the American Revolution.

Wisdom Built©

A Limerick A Day to Keep You On Your Way© 

There was a woman of wisdom, a house she built.

Filled with understanding covered her like a quilt.

Fear of the Lord,

No need to hoard.

For the whored woman her quilt is heavy as guilt.

 

How can we be non-confrontational in a confrontational world?

We can’t.  And we aren’t meant to be.  The best we can do is to be in control of our emotions.  Emotions set the course of everything we do.  Feelings produce the perception of an experience causing a reaction.  Behaviour drives results. Results repeated produce a program in the subconscious mind.  This program repeats itself whenever the feeling button is pushed regardless of the circumstance.   Great marketers know this.  Great marketers can be good or evil.

Fear is the biggest market programmer.

My mother was afraid to drive on the highway.  I have a sibling who for years would not travel the highway.  My mother also fearlessly told us there is no such word as can’t.  That truth caused each of her seven children to do things that sometimes appeared reckless. But it also produced the ability to withstand the onslaught of naysayers as we chose to fulfil some of our life’s dreams.  I bought a house as a single mom back in the 1980’s.  I changed careers at 40, despite my father’s fear I was making a big mistake leaving a well-established company. A good friend was one of my naysayers as well. I have now been owned my own company for 22 years. Several of my siblings have owned their own companies as well. 

What can’t fear do?

Fear can’t control you when your hope is in the Fearless One.  That doesn’t mean you won’t feel afraid or doing something afraid.  It means it can’t control you.  My mother may have never faced her fear of the highway but she had great faith in the Fearless One.  That faith made her figure out ways to get where she wanted to be, even if it meant taking a bit longer.  And when she was in her seventies she flew alone for the first time!  

We are living in a time when fear, great fear, is trying to control us.    Can you imagine what it was like to fight in the American Revolution?  It was more than just soldiers.  Whole families were fighting for freedom.  The risk was great.  The fear,  maybe greater. October 19, 1781, was the day Lord Cornwallis surrendered, ending the American Revolutionary War, and winning our freedom from Great Britain.  There was still much that would happen to secure that freedom.  

We are again facing a great fight for freedom. Such freedoms as the right to choose our medical decisions, what our children are taught, how to run our businesses, what we can say, to name just a few.  I believe with all my heart we are living in a time that God is asking us to stand unafraid and unashamed in the liberties He gave us. Do not forget that is the greatness of America.  It may have taken several generations to put forth the greatness of our Constitution but we do not want one generation to pass and all those freedoms be stripped away.

May God grant us wisdom and courage to confront the evil using fear to tell us we can’t live free.

 

Pray this prayer with me.

 Jesus,

You came to set sinful man free. Forgive us for our selfishness.  Forgive our many leaders trying to use worldly power for greed and selfish gain. Help each one of us be confrontational against evil. Give us a love for holiness and righteousness and deep hunger for Your Word. We have not known what it is to be brave fighting with our very lives.  If this is to be in our time we ask for mercy and help to stand and fight. Our hope is in You.  Amen

 

 

Galatians 5:1 KJV      Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

 

 

Written by Paula Ann Kochanek

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