“Father God, I am afraid. I admit it. The threats against me are real – at least some of them. I need your protection; I need you to rescue me. Keep your promises, and save me.

I also need you to banish the fear itself. Panic is its own threat to me. The chemical toxins released by fear cripple my body and my mind. Anxiety sickens me and brings out the darker elements of my soul. Yes, I am learning to trust you and to lean into your love and rest that comes from a confidence of your goodness, but I still struggle and suffer the damages of the radioactive debris that my fears leave behind.

You gave fear as a gift, to guard and motivate me against real danger. I need it also learn to approach you with utmost care and respect. But I have given fear a domain it never deserves. I have let it rule me. I have made survival a god in my life, and its tyranny drives me to my knees, not in gratitude but in terror. It’s a sick kind of false worship. Deliver me from fear’s grip.

Your promise surprises me. I would imagine that the medicine for fear would be courage, that I should buck up and fight the villain fire for fire. But you say something else: you say, “Perfect Love drives out fear.” Love?

Okay… I learned today that scientific research validates this antidote. Imagine that… Love, the engaged empathy one to another actually creates a counter hormone in my brain, a tonic that neutralizes the toxins of fear. Being loved and loving literally re-wires my circuitry cutting through the tangled knots left behind by fear. Love from you and to you “drives fear out!”

So today me prayer is for love, that you would guide me to receive your tender affections and your to grasp the infinite value you place on me, and that in return, out of gratitude, not obligation I would return that affection, to you and in turn outward to others. Today, give me the grace of love… Which will then set me free from fear!

I will trust you in this, that as I give what I receive fear will be displaced and sent to the pit of hell where it belongs.

In Jesus…”