In Gateway Eight of Everyday Enlightenment: The Twelve Gateways to Personal Growth, Dan Millman says, “Fear is a wonderful servant, but a terrible master.” He reminds us that fear, like pain, can alert and advise us, but it can also cloud our thinking and limit our lives. Fear appears in many disguises: “I’m not really interested,” “Why bother?” or “I can’t.” We face fear every day—the fear of failure, rejection, change, and even the fear of fully being ourselves. But our fears are not walls; they are hurdles. Courage is not the absence of fear, but the willingness to move through it.
Every one of us faces fear on a regular basis. Being spiritually aware of our fears allows us the opportunity to go within and do some deep inner work. Fear can be used as a barometer, showing us what is happening within and around us. But fear was never meant to be in the driver’s seat. It was never meant to run our lives.
In the 1938 version of the Science of Mind text, Ernest Holmes writes that fear is “the negative use of faith.” He describes it as faith misplaced—a belief in two powers instead of One. Fear happens when we forget there is One Power, One Presence, One Life, and we begin to believe there is something greater than Good, greater than God, or greater than the Divine Presence within us.
And yes, I get it. We are living in a chaotic world right now. We are human beings with free will, and when people forget our connection to each other, to nature, and to this planet, chaos seems to reign. The choice we must make is whether we are going to feed the chaos or feed our faith.
There is an Old English proverb that says, “Fear knocked at the door, faith answered, and no one was there.” Fear often grows in our imagination before anything actually happens. We become afraid of a story we have told ourselves about an outcome that may never come to pass.
My husband recently learned that although his last chemotherapy treatment is scheduled for August 19th, after a two-week break, he will begin radiation treatments—five days a week for six weeks. I felt myself starting to go down a rabbit hole of anger and disappointment.
Then I was reminded of an ancient wisdom story: inside each of us are two wolves constantly battling. One is love and the other is fear. The wolf that wins is the one we feed.
And then I remembered: there are truly only two emotions — love and fear. All other emotions fall under one of them. So I asked myself, “Which wolf am I feeding?”
I took a time-out and texted my prayer posse, because I know that when I can’t see the forest, they can. Sometimes facing our fears does not mean we do it alone. Sometimes courage looks like reaching out, asking for prayer, and allowing others to hold the vision of faith when our own vision feels blurry.
Fear wants us isolated. Love reminds us we are connected. And in that moment, I chose to feed love.
Fear is not here to stop us unless we let it. Fear gives us space to look within and decide what we are going to feed.
Ramakrishna said, “The winds of God’s grace are always blowing; it is for us to raise our sails.”
So face your fears. Raise your sails. Trust Spirit. And move forward.
Blessings on your journey,
Rev. Gayle
Rev. Gayle
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