Do you know what a kissing cousin is? Please don’t give the obvious answer. 🙂

No. A kissing cousin is an idea, thought or action that is similar to or often goes hand-in-hand with another. For today’s devotion, I thought of two words/emotions which are kissing cousins: Fear and worry.

We all know what it is like to be gripped by fear. It can paralyze us. It can make us irrational. It can make us combative. Fear can also freeze us in our place, make our mouth go dry and send chills up and down our spine. Watch a really scary movie and take note of your reaction. (I’d rather not thank you very much).

Fear has a kissing cousin: worry. They often work in tandem. This past weekend I was speaking with a young man and he was talking about the company he worked for. I talked about the commercials I have seen and how well done they are and how they show people working together. Happily, he praised the PR/advertising folks and he also talked about their product and how he liked working for them. Then he made a sobering statement which set me back.  He said the economists with the company were predicting a recession, a slowdown in the economy at the end of ’24 and the beginning of ’25. In fact, they said it was going to be worse than the recession of ’08. My first reaction was one of “Oh boy.” Not positive but negative. Part of me wanted to hunker down; part of me said, “What am I afraid of?” As the pastor of a church that wants to-needs to-and he been planning and saving for an expansion for over 4 years, I started thinking, “Is that wise?” “Should we stop saving and planning?” “Should we become ultra-conservative?” “Should we continue saving and keep waiting to see what happens?  (Fun fact: we have been saving over 4 years because our plans have always been to build as we have the money),

Fear and worry can paralyze us. Corporately. Individually. The truth is we have nothing to fear. As people used to say a lot in the recent past: “God’s got this.”

Fear and worry take a back seat when I believe that He is in control and that I trust Him. Instead of letting fear and worry hold hands in the back seat, let’s put them in separate car seats. Better yet, let’s banish them completely.