Craig D. Lounsbrough

God__ eyes readily see beyond our actions, for our actions are simply fear and selfishness pretending to be us.

Either we are running __rom_ what we fear or running __o_ what we fear. The former is a choice controlled by fear, the latter is an action inspired by it.

Most of our fears are borrowed. Since that__ the case, we should get busy returning them.

Fate_ and __oincidence_ are the mythological derivatives authored by those who refuse to see a __reater purpose_, because such a conclusion would naturally suggest a __reater Being_.

Fear is a lethal killer of dreams, the greatest cancer that has beset passion, and a ruthless thief of lives stolen and buried in the decay of lives squandered. Yet the greatest tragedy of all is that the fear that destroys us is rarely the monster it pretends to be, nor does it possess anything close to the power that we grant it. Therefore, it is only a killer, a cancer and a thief because we empower it to be so.

I might define a __ourney_ as something that life itself calls me to. And I might then define a __rip_ as something I create to avoid a journey by mimicking a journey. And while fear is most certainly part and parcel of both, the latter is emboldened by fear while the former surrenders to it.

It__ not about the elimination of fear. Rather it__ about the elimination of the feeling that the elimination of fear is necessary before we take the next step.

Far too often, it is at the moment where we finally stand on the very precipice of some great thing that we turn and abandon it, for it is at these seminal moments that fear wins and greatness dies. The beauty of Christmas is that God steps over precipices.

The choice to avoid risk is the choice to avoid living, and to avoid living is one of the greatest risk of all.

Self-preservation is to hunker down in the suffocating confines of this infinitesimally tiny existence that I define as __e,_ instead of letting __e_ run through the infinitely massive expanse of everything that is not me. And if the beast of self-preservation does not permit such freedoms, I will preserve myself to my own death.

How often have I painted a splendid picture of a journey marked by courageous ascents and daring desert crossings when all along all I__e really been doing is running?

I am amazed that without any hesitation whatsoever I can completely believe myself to be on a grand journey of massive vistas and bold ascents, only to find that they are nothing more than a figment of a frightened imagination that needed a journey but could not admit to the fear of actually taking one.

Fear is often bred of an imagination that couldn__ let something be what it actually was.

By choosing comfort we are in the very same decision choosing to miss every great thing in life, and that thought should be anything but comforting.

The assumption is that if I expend myself for myself in the end all I__l be left with is myself, and that alone is frightening. But what I__e failed to consider is that I have to expend so much of myself living for myself that in the end I__ really left with very little of myself, and that is unimaginably frightening.

The hand of God is wonderfully evident at those times when He pens stories whose lines we ourselves are far too fearful to pen or whose imaginations are far too limited to envision. And I would unashamedly suggest that the Christmas story is that very story.

What in the world would ever lead to me believe that life is a series of opportunities that are readily available to everyone else but me? What really leads me to believe such an atrocious lie is that I don__ believe in myself sufficiently to engage those opportunities in the first place.

What excites us the most or likewise scares us the most is when something is exactly what it says it is. And when it comes to Christmas, we__e going to end up finding ourselves on one side of that line or the other.