The nineteenth century Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard called fear “the psychological condition that precedes sin.” Fear has incredible power to cause people to act irrationally. The person who generated today’s prayer has one of the best one-liners about fear I have ever read. Karle Wilson Baker (1878-1960) was a twentieth century poet and author. She added an “e” to the end of her name to avoid gender confusion. (Not that it helped matters.) She finally resorted to the pseudonym Charlotte Wilson to eliminate the confusion.
Karle taught at Stephen F. Austin University during a time when the ole’ boys club dominated the Texas literary scene. During a leave of absence from teaching, she enrolled in a Contemporary Poetry class at the University of California in Berkeley in 1926. The professor, unaware of Karle’s attendance in class, read one of her poems, identified the author as male and proceeded to explain its meaning. After the teacher went on at some length about the poem, Karle raised her hand, identified herself as its author and supplied the poem’s intended purpose.
Karle not only became a nationally known poet but was also an accomplished novelist and writer of children’s stories. Now for her one-liner I mentioned earlier. She submitted several short poems for a poetry magazine in 1921. One of them titled “Courage” included the line, “Courage is fear that has said its prayers.” Courage is not the absence of fear; courage is what God supplies to face our fears. God said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go” (Josh. 1.9).
One of Karle’s poems guides us to pray: