Fear is never justified.
1. Fear is a deception.I
²It testifies that you have seen yourself as what you could never be, and therefore behold a world impossible.
³Not one thing in that world is true.
⁴It does not matter what form it takes.
⁵It is only the witness to your own illusions about yourself.
⁶Let us not be deceived today.
⁷We are the Son of God.
⁸There is no fear in us, for each of us is a part of Love Itself.
2. How foolish are our fears!
²How could You allow Your Son to suffer?
³Give us today the faith we need to recognize Your Son and set him free.
⁴Let us forgive him in Your Name,
that we may understand his holinessand feel for him the same Love You do.
I I am a great master at deceiving myself. I can invent any foolish idea and believe it without the slightest doubt. I practice this art faithfully, telling myself false stories and defending them as though they were truths. My power of conviction is such that I can even infect my brothers with my latest invention, leaving behind a trail of sadness and despair. How pitiful is this “art”! How much it makes me suffer, and how much pain it causes! One day I will have to stop and ask myself honestly why I do it.
Fear is precisely that: the result of having told myself a frightening story about something that is neither there nor true. In this it resembles faith, for both—fear and faith—are beliefs projected upon the invisible. Faith and fear alike consist in giving reality, for myself, to something I do not perceive with the senses. The difference lies in the content of the story and in the emotional resonance it evokes.
Every emotional state of the personal mind is the direct consequence of the story I tell myself. If I want a negative emotional resonance, it is enough to invent a tale that awakens fear, anger, or guilt. If I want a positive resonance, I can tell myself a story that inspires trust, love, or gratitude. In either case, they are still only stories.
The question, then, is simple: what kind of emotional resonance do I want to have? Today I can consciously choose to tell myself a story that reflects the truth—that I am the Son of God, that there is no fear in me because I am part of Love Itself. And thus, by replacing fear with faith in Love, I will remember that there is no justification for fear, and that my only function is to forgive and to love.
Fear is never justified.
I am the Son of God, part of the Love that nothing can threaten.