Fear not!

Aloha, Friend.

When something is repeated in the Bible, it usually means it is important. "Don't be afraid" or "Fear not!" is one of those phrases I see a lot of in the Bible. We are to fear God, but nobody else. Even then, the fear of God is a healthy respect for God's power and position as righteous Judge of all, tempered by the certainty of knowing his love for us. Misplaced fear is well known to harm health, impair judgment, interfere with communications, and cause harmful overreactions and even wars. Fortunately, God backs anything He commands us to do with the power to make it happen. God provides us with love, and perfect love casts out fear. (1 John 4:18)

Of course, walking in faith in God and love instead of walking in fear doesn't mean we are unwise in the way we conduct ourselves. For example, we pray and ask for God's guidance as we vote for and pray for our leaders. We prepare and have contingency plans... but we don't lose our perspective of the big picture, where God is completely faithful in doing what He promised. So, what did we do when a hurricane was threatening us the last time? We already had done what we needed to do for the last storm that actually missed us, so we went on a hike.

It was awesome to have Evan come visit us for a week.

Thank you for your prayers!