Fear will always step in the moment we choose to let faith go.

Guilt brings condemnation and fear brings torment.

Both condemnation and fear can cause a Believer to live in a condition of mental torment.

Fear will paralyze your confidence in God's willingness to be your provider and answer your prayers.

Sweating bullets to line up the Bible with our exhausting expectations, to make the Bible something it's not meant to be, isn't a pious act of faith, even if it looks that way on the surface. It's actually thinly masked fear of losing control and certainty, a mirror of an inner disquiet, a warning signal that deep down we do not really trust God at all.

Trust does not cancel our mind but circumscribes it and tames it—and so we do not succumb to fretting or anxious thoughts of being unsure.

Sweating bullets to line up the Bible with our exhausting expectations, to make the Bible something it's not meant to be, isn't a pious act of faith, even if it looks that way on the surface. It's actually thinly masked fear of losing control and certainty, a mirror of an inner disquiet, a warning signal that deep down we do not really trust God at all. A

The big lesson I learned from wrestling with my own curveballs is how deeply my faith in God had been cemented in fear—which is to say, how I viewed God as very much antagonistic toward me. And so any thought on my part of listening to my experiences and interrogating my inherited faith—to inspect its boundaries let alone climb over its walls—was seen as a crisis that had to be averted or at least resolved immediately.

The root of the conflict for many Christians is not scientific or even theological, but group identity and fear of losing what it offers.

And He has filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability, and knowledge in all kinds of craftsmanship,

Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “We must go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly conquer it!”

saying to them, “Hear, O Israel, today you are going into battle with your enemies. Do not be fainthearted or afraid; do not be alarmed or terrified because of them.