Be Faithful

Who is your Paul?

Who is your Timothy?

Personal Illustration about my dad and the men who mentored him.

What would your Paul say about you?

Paul writes of Timothy’s sincere faith. Shown to him by his grandmother Lois, and in his mother Eunice.

God did not give us a Spirit of fear.

God has given us a Spirit of Power, Love, and Sound Mind/Self Discipline.

What are you Afraid of?

Here is a list of possible fears, not that I’ve ever had any of these. This is by no means an exhaustive list.

Something bad will happen to our family

Cancer

Tornadoes/Storms

Losing a job

What people think

Messing up/not doing something right

Have you ever looked up the names of fears?

Just FYI when you google names of fears, you get Nomatophobia, which is the fear of names.

Here are the top 10 phobias:

Arachnophobia – The fear of spiders affects women four times more (48% women and 12% men). Ophidiophobia – The fear of snakes. Phobics avoid certain cities because they have more snakes. Acrophobia – The fear of heights. Five percent of the general population suffer from this phobia. Agoraphobia – The fear of open or crowded spaces. People with this fear often wont leave home. Cynophobia – The fear of dogs. This includes everything from small Poodles to large Great Danes. Astraphobia – The fear of thunder/lightning AKA Brontophobia, Tonitrophobia, Ceraunophobia. Claustrophobia – The fear of small spaces like elevators, small rooms and other enclosed spaces. Mysophobia – The fear of germs. It is also rightly termed as Germophobia or Bacterophobia.Trypophobia Aerophobia – The fear of flying. 25 million Americans share a fear of flying. Trypophobia – The fear of holes is an unusual but pretty common phobia. (http://www.fearof.net/)

I need to confess, when I was a kid, I was afraid. For some reason, I was afraid that someone was going to come into my house when I asleep. I remember one night, I heard a noise outside. I got up and went to mom and dad’s door, knocked, and cracked the door. “Dad, someone’s outside my window.” He told me to go back to sleep there was no one out there. I went and tried to lay back down, but I couldn’t get it out of head. So I got back up and woke dad up and told him someone was outside my window. He got up, not very happy mind you, and handed me a flashlight, walked down the hall, turned on the outside flood lights, and said, “If someone’s outside, go find them.” The first thought that came to my mind, was Dad you’re crazy! He walked me to the back door, and said, “I’ll be in the bed, come get me if you need me.” So I went outside, walked around the house three times, the whole time quoting , “When I am afraid, I will trust in you.” I found nothing. Dad knew I wouldn’t, I’m sure he was aggravated that I didn’t trust him or take him at his word.

Are you afraid of loosing something?

If so, that has become an idol.

Do not be ashamed

Join in the suffering

Live Holy

Do not worry about me (Paul)

Guard your faith

With the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.