The Overcoming of Fear

In the days to come look back and remember the storm without and the peace within. There you have your simile of physical and spiritual life.

Never be dismayed! Those who have suffered rather deeply, do not be dismayed. Behind the greatest sorrow, behind the greatest forces of evil, there shines the Light and the Love of God!

There are those who on looking back have seen much in their own lives which represents disaster and destruction. Not only things in a physical sense or in connection with loved ones gone on but those spiritual battles which must be met and fought and conquered again and again.

Do not be deceived! There are those whose lives seem to lie on tranquil waters; things go well with them; nothing seems to disrupt their serenity; blows fall on either side but they go on unscathed! That is the world's judgment but this is only the outward and tangible of all that lies underneath.

Be neither deceived nor let others deceive you. The road to God is steep, it is hard-going in a spiritual sense, and it is full of much that tries. When you see others at grips with the enemy pause and think to yourself how you shall meet it when your time comes.

The easy stages lie at the bottom of the hill. Those who are highest up immediately attract to their sides the strongest forces of evil which are there to hurl them back, literally, into the abyss beneath!

It is a subject that cannot be glossed over or waived aside. There is not one child of the earth, and not one who has passed out of the body, that has not to come to grips with these terrific forces which are out to kill the hope within. As you grow, you will say at this point or another that now you understand!

And yet, do not be afraid or dismayed. Behind the darkest cloud is the sun of God's love. If you only wait patiently, doing the best you can, and trying to hold on to that which seems to have slipped from you, the Light will come! It shall come because it is a promise of the Father, Who understands that to His children these adverse forces are terrifying indeed. The shadows are not shadows to them, but something so solid, so overwhelmingly powerful that they shrink and shrink again!

At night, in a lonely forest, far away from humanity, deserted it seemed by all, some come face to face with Fear. But because they left it in the hands of God the enemy parted on either side and the path before them led them home.

This is a symbol of what must come to all! But remember that when you come face to face with "fear" you have got to meet it and not turn from it; you have got to strip yourself of self and you have got to leave it in the Hands of God. There has never been anyone yet who has left it to God who hasn't found it wonderfully well in His Hands, and the joy that comes after is just a little indication of the joy which is being built up all around those who have striven and failed and yet striven again and again.

This then should be your watchword. Though you fail a thousand times you will try again! In that trying God shall send His helpers, His strongest guard, and in the end you shall find yourself not in a dark and lonely forest but Home safe and sound!

All must grow, and it must appeal to your common sense that the process of growth is painful. With those who suffer no growing pains it is the worst sign of all; it simply means that they have hardly begun to climb at all. Now no one would wish to be like that.

There are among God’s children those who have suffered grievously; those who have had to give up their will again and again, and the process has almost broken their hearts. So it seemed, but God's Love is so healing, so wonderfully healing that they forget, and they shall forget for hereafter it will be impossible to remember.

The sad side belongs to the earth. Once the spirit is free then there is joy, joy that no words can tell; joy because, although they knew it not, they suffered and were strong.

Many of God’s children think they suffer and are weak, but before long they shall see that although the physical mind flinched beneath the burden the spirit was strong; strong in the Lord, strong with that wonderful inner strength which only is possible after great suffering.

You know full well that if the dedication is there, if the wish for service is there and if the desire to love God is there as well, then that shall produce just what your Father intended and, in time to come, you shall find that you have built better than you knew.

But be on your guard against doubt; and against indifference most of all, indifference over those little things which do not seem to you to matter. Those little things are the cement that keep the bricks together, and if that watchfulness over self is absent the bricks may be there but that which makes them strong in unity will be missing.

You are God’s child, and you have been under His care for so long that it is difficult to express it in words. But long before you took on your physical experience and came into a world that in some ways has not proved overly kind.

Therefore trust your Father more, try and turn to Him more and more and be certain that what touches you touches Him. God’s children are as the nerves of His heart and their troubles are His troubles; their joys are going to be His joys as well. When you get on you will find things will come to you in exactly the same way. When you get the larger vision of the spirit self seems so unimportant, so trivial. You want to be free, and all your thoughts and hopes are focused on another, on many others, and in service to them you get that gladness which nothing else can bring, because it links you with the Christ who said "Feed my lambs!"

God and the Christ are with you in a way you cannot understand; living in your life, of your life, bound to you closer than words can say.

If with happiness there seemed to you to run the river of pain, this is only the earth side and in a spiritual sense has been one of beauty, of holiness and of unity.

You are out for big things, and you cannot break up a field with a tiny pocket knife, you have got to use suitable tools. Within you, in a way altogether beyond your comprehension, lies power; the power of the Spirit before which nothing can stand. So do not let your heart be troubled! Keep the Truth in front of you as a beacon of light, and neither be dissuaded nor persuaded one way or the other. Look not to the left or to the right, but to God who calls you on!

With those who have once heard the call, even though they waste time by the way, that which is within them will not let them rest. They belong to better things and sooner or later they will start to climb. Although the way is heavy going and there is weariness, what you call spiritual weariness, but also that weariness of the physical mind, on either side you are companioned by the Heavenly Host and those who are there in bright array shall bear you on in spite of all!

The Holy Spirit has called you, it is calling to the world and soon, sooner than many think, the Voice will become so persistent that an answer will have to be made. Prepare the way so that when the Light comes to those who walk in darkness the sky will be clear, in a physical sense, because of the work done by the children of the Lord. Ignorantly, blindly, blunderingly, so it seems to you. But that work is the work which will tell, and that work one day is going to be shown as the sure foundation on which God's building can rest.

This is the beginning, the beginning which shall soon be seen by those who watch as the opening out into something big and permanent. That growth shall go on and on and the blessing shall come upon the children of the earth; the blessing of the gift of the Holy Spirit as their possession. It has been given to humanity since the first stages, but it shall be shown again as a gift direct from God.

Do your part to prepare the way, continue to sow the seeds, remember that what you do not do has to be done by another. Do your part and if that is done to the best of your ability you shall indeed rejoice, for God has given you the vision of the future in the measure that you could bear it. It is always the vision that calls humanity on, which bids them forsake the busy streets of material life and separate themselves from that which would destroy. It bids them to enter into the holy citadel of the Spirit within to get into personal touch with the Christ, and by trying to follow His example strength to do likewise is passed out into the world. Thus each individual can build for God, can bring down blessings upon themself and blessings upon those others who, as yet, are far down in the valley and without the strength to climb.

Be brave; search within yourself for that spiritual courage and try to demonstrate the Christ in your daily life. Be thoughtful for others, be kind, and know that in doing so the happiness you pass on to others will echo back to the soul within, because there is unity with the Spirit and the harmony which is of God alone.

This message was first given in 1924 through Winifred Moyes.

© The Greater World Christian Spiritualist Association 2025

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