As I sat in church yesterday listening to my Pastor as he spoke about the storms that we each must face in our lives, he flashed up on the overhead screen 2 Timothy 1:7 which says: “For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.” As I drove home thinking about fear and what it does to each of us in our jobs, it became reassuring to me that we can know that fear is not from God, as the verse above tells us that God has not given us this emotion. Fear is a real emotion in our jobs, although no one ever really talks about it. It starts with a general insecurity and fear of our job performance and job loss. Long ago, the contract and assurances of lifetime employment was broken. Since then, we all fear at one point or another that supply and demand will take over and the greater supply of talent than demand will catch up with us and we will “be out”. The newspapers will be full this week of stories of those in the financial industry who just over a year ago were on top of the world and today find themselves unemployed or employed well below their expectations and former career pinnacle positions. Our job insecurities are fears. We also fear how others will perceive our work and the reactions to the positions and stands that we take. Many drives into the office in the morning are filled with butterflies in our stomach. The problem with living in fear is that we then fall into the timidness that Timothy also describes. Being timid then leads us to stand still and miss opportunities, or worse yet to fail to take the stands that we know we should. So, that is why Timothy’s verse can make such a huge difference in how we go to work this week. Imagine that we could really, truly, replace the feeling of fear with power. Add on love and self-discipline and you have the whole package. Today, as you start the work week, think about the areas, issues, people where you get that feeling of fear inside of you and pray this week to have fear replaced with the power that can come from God being taken to work with you!

Reference: 2 Timothy 1:7 (New Living Testament)