Sound mind

2 Tim 1:7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power, love and a sound mind.

For some reason, when I read this verse this time, I thought of all those I've personally known and have seen who did not maintain a sound mind. Not someone who acted silly at a gathering but one who did look as if they had lost their mind. One in particular comes to me. She was unable to get out of bed, not because of a physical condition but because of her mind. A lost expression sat on her face and fear rushed through her eyes in a continual restless cycle. Was fear the culprit?

Then I searched areas in my life where fear lived and found how not only I, but how everyone of us actually look to fear as if we wanted to cultivate fear and integrate it in our daily lives. Movies for instance. Why do we look for a thriller, or an adventure where fear makes our heart race. Fear is the opposite of faith and love, yet, here we go training our minds to live in fear for fun. We even pay to have this take place in our hearts. Sounds unproductive to me. Sounds foolish.

We also encourage fear talk. Each time we tell a story we embellish the fear part to make ourselves look special to the listener. We look to the negatives in life, which are the fears, instead of the positives. We think of the worse case scenarios. Why? Fear takes over unnoticed and we live in fear instead of faith. I ask again, why do we do this as Christians? Do we train our children to do this? I think we might.

Then I compared this to a sound mind. What is as sound mind? It is faith, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness faithfulness and self control. A sound mind believes, trusts, encourages others and seeks the best. A sound mind knows all is well with the soul and finds adventure in a life guided by God, for walking by faith and trusting He knows what He is doing is a definite adventure in faith(which, by the way is not lived in fear.)

I wonder just how many of those people who looked as if they had lost their minds would have been helped by simple scripture readings each day, a time of peace that placed the faith of God in their hearts and minds. I also wonder just how much fear we can allow in our own hearts before we loose our minds. God has not given us a spirit of fear. Why do we allow another spirit in or even entertain the idea.

Thank you God, that you have not given us a spirit of fear, that you maintain us with your spirit of love.