Perfect love casts out all fear. Love and peace are one in same in that one cannot exist without other and one is always product of other. Peace and love abolish fear and their presence makes all things possible.

Fear is anti-belief that something good can arise from your situation. Fear is stumbling block that makes you so sure your world is one of torment that you don't see good that is there for you. If fear is in your heart, you can only communicate to others through fear and then fear is likely to be only thing returned to you.

The fears in our lives are often so deeply rooted that we will go to such extremes to hold onto them, even though these same things are destroying our lives. By identifying yourself as a tough person, by acknowledging and embracing that you are a sickly person, and by denying there are things in your life to improve, you are embracing fears and accepting their effects as who you are. Fear, being result of darkness or lack of light, is terrified of truth because it knows that truth will simply make it vanish. When light is turned on in a darkened room, darkness doesn't leave...it ceases to exist.

If you identify yourself with these darker thoughts, you will find yourself not wanting to hear truth because it tears at core of who you think you are and creates a misperception that you will lose yourself if you open yourself to truth. The reality is that you are not what fear has taught you that you are and there is nothing to lose, only your freedom to gain. Fear strangles and limits. Truth caresses and grows.

Anything that teaches through fear or uses fear in any way, is not from God. This truth is so simple, yet it unhinges most of what we have been taught. Any religion you pursue, any teaching you listen to and any concepts or ideas you hear can be looked upon with that truth. If something does not agree with this truth, it is in error in some way. It's best for you to know that God does not teach nor command through fear, sacrifice, temptation and suffering. The concept of an actual loving and peaceful God nullifies much of what was written about judgmental, paranoid, vengeful and ill tempered God of Bible and many other books. Knowing truth that God is an actual loving and peaceful being, helps you to more easily identify and focus on those few things that are truthfully written about him.

Peace is absence of fear. Fear cannot motivate you to find peace. When you find yourself working hard to find peace, you can get blinded to fact that its your own busyness and efforts that ensure you won't find it. Peace is total lack of any effort or work because it is always there and has never left. Peace is pure tranquility, stillness, gentleness and quietness and is total absence of work, tiredness and effort. If you are working or using effort to find peace, you are ensuring you never will because peace is total opposite of work and effort you are using to find it. By learning to stop and by learning to set aside man-made concepts of working to reach peace, you will learn and see that peace exits as it always has existed and it is patiently waiting for you to stop and just allow it to enter your way of life.

Peace and love is final result of our journey back to God. There is not one among us who will not achieve this. There is not one person you know or have heard about that will not eventually return to God after having allowed light to enter and having dispelled all fear. Total forgiveness is result of removing fear. Unconditional love is result of removing all fear. Total knowledge and awareness of God is result of removing all fear.

Discovering your peace is a wonderful thing. It's a holy thing and a treasured thing because it is really only state of being that God acknowledges that truly exists. Holding onto your peace is often an entirely other thing. Often we let slightest change in our environment or smallest of words, totally obscure peace from our lives. Many of us can testify to having had most wonderful day, morning or moment and then see all our peace and contentment disappear moment we allow something in world to affect us.

No effort is necessary in finding peace or holding onto peace, because peace is always patiently waiting there for us. One other hand, consistent and sincere effort is necessary in handing over all thoughts and ideas that we allow to obscure our peace. You worked hard to build these obstacles to peace and so there may be some effort in removing them. As with God and love, peace never leaves, we just put things in its way. After obscuring our peace, we say it has left us, but it hasn't...we have simply obscured it. Eliminate unpeaceful thoughts and peace is right there where it always has been.

Let's follow some of my thoughts and see how this works. I will walk you through a moment where I perceived a problem in my life. My thoughts are shown like this:

I have become upset about way somebody has treated me. In doing so, I no longer feel at peace.

When I realize I am no longer at peace, I remind myself about many of truths I have discovered. Some things I often remember are:

Reaching for God. Searching for Peace. Wanting Happiness. Yearning for Love. These are all things we desire and even a hundred more things beyond that, but to seek these things is a clear indication that we feel as though we don't already have them. On one end we can acknowledge and say that God has already given us everything, but to truly believe that and apply it to all aspects of our lives, that is often a whole other story.

The Bible has many undeniable truths. Some items in Bible might be argued or totally disbelieved, but that doesn't matter. The Bible and other sources of Gods words to us, were never meant to be either totally accepted or totally rejected. This method of thinking limits your ability to clearly see truths that are there.

To totally accept every word in Bible as end-all be-all, you have mixed Gods truths with personalities, opinions and folk-lore of writers. You will find so many contradictions that you are forever trying to explain them in some way in which they don't contradict. Real truths need no defense or explanation.

For example, concept that God was not able to bear actions of people he created ( he was so upset ), that he flooded entire earth, killing life upon life, upon lifeform...does not agree with concept of a loving and forgiving God. We can justify it by seeing God how we see ourselves and assume it was his right to do with us as he pleases and we should just be thankful he didn't just kill us all...or we can see that writers totally misunderstood an event that occured and treated and viewed God as all ancient tribes did and ASSUMED they were being punished and therefore wrote God in as they saw themsleves...angry, unforgiving, frightened and vengeful people.

On other hand, to not accept any part of Bible at all, you have restricted yourself from being exposed to truths that God has shared with us. Gods truths are all that matter...not when something happened or if something happened, but who we are to be...how we are to live...who God is to us...those things are important. His truths are there and in so many other places as well. They are in songs you hear and movies you see. Once you begin to open your heart to see truthfully, everything becomes so much clearer.

A favorite verse of mine sums up just about all you need to do, be and know. You can virtually throw whole book away, but hang onto this one truth...
"Trust in Lord with all your heart and do not depend upon your own understanding. In everything you do, acknowledge Him and he will direct your path."

This one phrase, one seemingly simple statement, contains everything you need to know in order to have a successful relationship with God and find your way home. All other spiritual truths in Bible, Course in Miracles, etc, are based upon spirit of this one phrase.

"Trust in Lord with all your heart...." It flows off our lips so quickly, yet, have we ever fully comprehended what it means or entails? To Trust God is to have full confidence in what he would decide for you. Trusting consists of removing all fear from your heart about what your past, present or future may hold. Trust includes having forgiven everyone and everything of what you believe they have done to you. Trusting means you have released all grievances with yourself, world and God. Trusting removes all faith in what you believed you can do on your own and acknowledges that everything and anything of value can only be done through God.

To trust God is to see yourself without means to pay a bill, while never fearing what may come of it. Whether it is paid or not, you believe path you are on is one that is perfect for you and you can therefore only be content with life. God knows what is necessary for you to learn and grow, so to fear what is brought before you, is not trusting him.