Daily Bible Devotional: Commentary on 2 Timothy

2 Timothy 1:7...For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

Yesterday as I was driving home, a sign on the side of the roadway flashed a message of an accident ahead and said there was an overturned car. My first thought, sadly, was of how much traffic there was going to be ahead. I started thinking of turning off on the next exit so I could avoid more traffic. Then the next thought that came to me was fear: What if that accident was involving someone I knew, like one one of my sons? I knew they frequently took this same freeway and frequently were in this same area. Within minutes God spoke to me about my wrong thinking – how I had instantly been selfish and then fearful – only thinking about me (the traffic) and the what-ifs (my family)

I immediately began to ask for forgiveness and prayed for the people, or persons, that were involved with the accident. As I approached the accident scene, the tow-truck was just getting ready to leave and I stared at the shattered glass that was left lying on the freeway. The accident had been a bad one, and there were obviously people seriously hurt or killed.

God reminds me of my selfishness a lot these days, and also of my fearful attitude.

In Corinthians 10:5 (NIV) God specifically addresses how we are to handle our imaginations:

⁵ We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

God says not to let our imaginations run away with us. This is something I struggle with on a daily basis. Perhaps part of it is that I grew up in a household where I had a very worried mother who also did exactly what I do today – letting her imagination run away with her sometimes. God however does not want us to live our lives in fear – He wants us to trust Him with every minute of every day. Admittedly, this is not an easy thing to do. We worry about our finances, our children, our jobs, our material things… the list goes on and on.

The more we focus on God though, He can take our lives out of the bondage of fear and turn them into lives of freedom without unnecessary fear. When we truly give our imaginations, our thoughts, and our problems to God, He can and will strengthen us and give us the courage to face whatever life throws at us.

This is just one devotional in a series of 365 devotionals that will one day be a book - both in hard cover and for the Kindle. All the text in this is my own (except of course for the Bible scriptures) I will be using the NIV (New International Version) for most of my reference to scripture. All the photos used will also be my own photography. If you would like to see more of my art and photography you can also visit me at www. dorsidiaz.com where I will also be chronicling this new book, along with my ideas for writing, marketing and creating e-books for aspiring writers. Thank you for reading!