Since February, I’ve made it a practice to exercise three times a week on the Skier’s Edge. I’ve worked my way up to 25 minutes and am at the point where I should really bump it up to 30. Might as well, because I try to time my workouts to coincide with Joyce Meyer’s program anyway. She has a lot of insight and I feel as if I’m getting two benefits out of that time stretch.

This morning I got a phone call halfway through the workout, so when I finally got back on the machine her program was done and a different one started which was on the subject of fear. Interesting to watch how God’s been orchestrating events in my life to bring me encouragement, and though I missed what Joyce was saying, I really needed to hear what was spoken in a different program about fear (and I wouldn’t have caught it had the phone call not come).

Fear has no part in a Christian’s life. It is the opposite of faith and will rob everyone (believer or not) of joy and peace, bringing a whole host of problems (some of them physical) if it becomes our focus. It is, as this man said, a “blessing blocker.” You either live in fear or you live in faith. It is a matter of what you choose to be your focus. Will you choose to believe God or you won’t you? I must learn to say, “It is well” regardless of circumstances, keeping in mind the story from 2 Kings of the Shunamite woman whose only son had died. When Elisha sent Gehazi to ask her, “Is it well with the child?” she answered, “It is well.” And it was, for she had the faith to believe God would raise her son from the dead. That’s the kind of faith I need.