God Has Not Given Us a Spirit of Fear

“And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your young men shall see visions, Your old men shall dream dreams.” (Acts 2:17)

Strange things seem to keep happening to me at 3 O'clock in the morning.

You ever have one of those weird dreams that you know cannot just be a coincidence?

I had one of those dreams last night.

In my dream, a good friend of ours told me she had been asked to head up a department, regarding something I am very passionate about, and have been involved in, at times throughout my life. Then she asked me to be a part of what she was working on.

I was a bit tentative, but definitely wanted to 'go for it.'

Although... this was something that I had previously stepped away from a couple of years ago, due to a very negative situation that occurred, which I had no control over, and in the process I had been deeply wounded emotionally. It was a very hard thing for me at the time, and it has left its share of scars.

After this perceived injustice, I promised myself; "Never again! I am so done with this!"

I mean, I wasn't going to let anyone treat me like that ever again.

You ever feel that way?

When you really put yourself out there—putting your whole heart into something. You held nothing back. Didn't play it safe.

And then—boom!—out of nowhere, totally unexpected—someone tramples your heart.

No one likes having the rug pulled out from under them. And when it happens, you go into self-preservation mode. You're not going to let anyone do that to you ever again.

Walls.

I've found that when I build walls of self-preservation around my heart, to protect me from a bad situation (like that) ever happening again, that I can also unwittingly block God's blessings from entering into my life in the process.

You can't live in fear. 

Fear of failing. Fear of rejection. Fear of not being liked. Fear of not being good enough.

In my dream last night I said:

“You can’t go through life worrying about something that 'might' happen.”

 I was giving a prophecy—a word of wisdom—to myself, in my dream.

How bizarre is that.

When I woke after my 'old man' dream, I knew it had to be around 3AM, since that is when I usually write a lot of my blog entries after having some kind of late-night epiphany. I kept repeating aloud what I said in the dream so I wouldn't forget it, and wrote it down.

The Lord then brought to my memory the following scripture about not living in fear:

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” (2 Timothy 1:7)

Don't let fear of what 'might' happen keep you from being blessed...and being a blessing to others.

Forgive whoever you may need to forgive. 

Then forget bad situations from the past that are keeping you down, holding you back. The only one who gets any glory in that nonsense is the Enemy of your soul. Don't let him win.

Then look ahead—press forward—to whatever God has called you to.

“Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:13-14)

Maybe you can't go back to where you once enjoyed a particular season of blessing. Things might look totally different this time. It might be in an entirely different place than where you were before.

That's okay.

Everything that we do in this life is only for a season. And only God knows when, where, and for how long, that season will be.

Enjoy it while He has you there. And embrace each new season as it comes.

As a friend of mine recently testified:

"When God takes something from your hand, He's simply making room for more." 

Watch my friend Jeff Anderson's entire amazing testimony here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mPw44bg2i_g

And in all things, to God be the glory!

     —God is Love and Love Never Fails.