I used to work in a mental hospital and so many, many times I was touched by the plight of the patients. They were held in terror, gripped fast in the bondage of their own delusions. I have seen people stare into space, looking at nothing . . . just nothing. But their imagination turned that nothing into a scene of horror. They screamed, shrieked and cowered back, seeing a nightmare and being attacked by a figment of their imagination.

All their fears were projected upon the screen of their imagination, and a hideous thing took form and shape, a hideous thing seen only by pathetic, deluded patients. Members of the staff and myself would try to comfort and reassure the terrified person, but almost always it would be without success. The vivid threat of the imagined evil was more real than the words of comfort that we had to offer. Fantasy was more real than reality. Actually, in reality, the patient was safe in a hospital room, surrounded by concerned people who wanted to be helpful. However, this was not reality to the patient. His mind had conjured up visions of horror. Unspeakable fiends flitted through the shadows of his mind, given life only by his imagination. But they were more real than the concerned flesh and blood people standing by his side, willing to help. The patient believed in his fears, believed in the pictures that they projected across his mind and believed their threats.

Fear creates fantasy. It stimulates the imagination to turn a shadow into a strangler's hand; a noise in the dark into a killer out for your life; a radiator blowing off steam into a discarnate spirit sweeping through your house. Not many reading this are as hypnotized by fear as the panic-stricken schizophrenic in the mental hospital, but many, many do have faith in their fears. Perhaps you too believe what your fears tell you. They discolor your whole life with their threats. You have a pain but the doctor says it is nothing; you just need to stop worrying and your stomach will stop burning. Your doctor says, "It's nothing serious," but your fears say, "It is stomach cancer. It is a terrible disease; it is the end for you." You tremble, pressure fills your brain and dark dreams flood your mind. The doctor has a fine education and a degree in medicine. He has run the most modern tests, tests that say it is nothing serious, but you have chosen to believe your fear so that you live in the bondage of this delusion. You are not screaming at shadows like the mental patient but, like him, you do refuse to be comforted. You refuse to accept reality, choosing, rather, to dwell in the misery which is the constant companion of those who have faith in their fears. You have dreamed up a monster that does not exist.

Last week at work your boss spoke a word which sounded harsh. It sounded as if he were displeased with your work. Perhaps this was only your imagination. Your good common sense says to "forget it. Perhaps he had an argument with his wife and was just taking it out on you. Just forget it." That is what your common sense says, but your fears say, "Oh, oh, you are in trouble; your boss doesn't like your work; you will probably be fired!" This fear just gnaws away at your mind until it actually does affect your work and brings you to the place where your employer is displeased with your work and all because your fears misread a wrinkle in his face and called it a frown.

How many housewives reading this now live in a delusion that their marriage is on the rocks, all because their fears manufactured some evidence that their husbands don't love them any longer? He says he does and acts like he does but your fears have blocked your ears and shut your eyes and told you stories that you have come to believe. You have your little family differences like all other people. He says, "I'm sorry, let's forget it." Your fears say, "No, he is not sorry." They won't let you forget it. Your fears say this is the end, and it is the beginning of the end for many marriages because a new mental attitude takes shape, an attitude formed by faith in fears. This is a mental state that sees the worst, expects the worst, and will not even try or hope for the best. It not only destroys relationships with its fumes of paranoia, but it wrecks promising careers and makes quivering, inept and inferior feeling people out of talented individuals. It robs the sunshine out of every day and turns life into a long, dreary, endless dirge. Faith in fear is a creeping thing, a malignancy that finds a radiant, healthy outgoing human being who is a happy productive person and drives a wedge into his life. All it wants is a place to begin and once it has begun, it grows and penetrates and drives that person until his whole outlook is distorted and his personality changed.

Fears grow into domineering phobias.

Fear comes with a whisper and a subtle, soft

voice. The whisper and the voice make their suggestions to all who will listen, and when they find one who will listen, the whisper turns into a shout and the suggestion into a command. And then fear has chained another galley slave, fear has bound another man. Fear has whipped another person into cowering subjection and that person can say in the words of Job, "the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me" (Job 3:25).

There is an old saying, "If hopes are frauds, then fears may be liars, too."

You look at hope as a liar and it seems as though nothing good can come to you. For some strange reason, it never occurs to you to question fear. That old saying asks you a question. "If hopes can be liars then can't fears lie also?" Why do you have such unswerving faith in your fears?

A little child twists and turns in her bed. She is having nightmares. Her father comes in and turns on the light and her tiny heart stops its wild pounding. She sees that it wasn't real after all. The light is on and her father is there.

Jesus said, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32). The truth comes into your darkness and turns on the light. In that light you see the Father standing there; it is all right now--the Father is there. It is believing the truth that snaps on the light and the dismal, terrifying phantoms that dwell only in the gloom of a fear-stimulated imagination flee when this light is turned on. You can choose whom you will believe. Will you believe your fears or will you believe the Word of God?

Two simple steps can help you master fear; two steps can set you free from this tyrant that has plundered your whole life.

Step one: Shine the light into every corner of your mind. This light will expose fear as a fraud. There is only one way you can do this and that is to fill your mind with God's Word. His Word is truth and the threats of your fears are lies. Let truth go in and conquer those lies. Read the promises of the Father. Read such reassuring verses as "Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of My righteousness" (Isaiah 41:10). Verse 13 in the same chapter says, "For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not: I will help thee."

Now right about here, as you start reading these things, your fears will speak. Your fears will say, "This is not for you. He has forsaken you for you are not worthy." Now the choice is yours. Are you going to believe your fears or are you going to believe the words of your Father?--your Father who cannot lie; your Father who has promised that He will never leave nor forsake you (Hebrews 6:18; 13:5).

The little girl who had the nightmares was comforted because she believed her father when he said, "It is all right, dear. I am right here." If she had not believed him, she would have continued in her fear just like the man in the mental hospital. You have the same choice. Believe the Father! He says, "Child, do not fear. I am right here with you."

Step two: This will help you believe the Father more than your fears. This step will make God's Word more real to you than your fears. It is so easy, but you must practice it. You must actually do it, that is, confess His Word and not your fears. When you talk about your fears, they grow all out of proportion, and what you talk about becomes very real to you. Talk about what God's Word says, confess His Word, say out loud His Word. In the face of every fear, confess God's Word. Say out loud "The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?" (Psalm 27:1). Say out loud "If God be for us, who can be against us?" (Romans 8:31). Say out loud "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me" (Psalm 23:4). Open your Bible and read His Word aloud. It will slay your fears. Read from Romans 8:35,37-39, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Child of God, He is here with you. Saying it, confessing it, will help you realize it and make His Word the reality of your life. I pray that this word will help you. It will if you will be a doer and not just a hearer.