Be Still And Know That I Am God // Do Not Be Afraid, Part 3

<p>Life is full of turmoil and often, often that turmoil breads fear in our hearts. And instead of stopping, we just kind of – go with the fear. Well it’s time to stop and know that God is God.</p> <p> </p> <h3><span style="color: #ff9900;"><strong>Our Refuge and Strength</strong></span></h3> <p>This week is the third message in a series of programmes that I have called “Do Not Be Afraid”. Fear is an incredibly powerful force – for two reasons. Firstly it is a natural response when something happens to threaten us or our loved ones or our possessions, fear grips us. In a sense, it’s a human response. But the more we go through that; the more we experience fear, the more – for many people – they learn the habit of fear. In other words, fear becomes more and more the normal response.</p> <p>There is an alternative of course; to learn how to deal with fear; to master fear with each new experience. But most people instead of growing through fearful experiences, actually, they go down and down and down into a bondage of fear and life is full of fear and worry. So many people spend so much of their lives worrying about this, that or the other.</p> <p>Do you think I am over estimating, do you? Do you think I am overstating the problem perhaps? Recently, during the global economic crisis, it was interesting to watch how it was reported – even the TV reporters and the newspaper reporters were fearful. You could see it in their faces on TV – you could hear it in voices on the radio – you could see it in the headlines on the front page of the newspaper – "THE WORST GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS IN DECADES". "BANKS ON THE BRINK". "GOVERNMENTS SHORE UP BANKS".</p> <p>Sure, it was international; the banks were at risk, but here in Australia at least, we were blessed by a very solid banking system, but if you listen to the media and the government and the banks, oh, it was terrible and they needed to be propped up. And the more they reported fearfully, the more fearful we all became and the worse the world economy became.</p> <p>See,