by Marilyn Ehle
“I sought the Lord and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears.” Psalm 34:4
The large, old house creaks with every rush of the night wind. Furnaces come on with a whoosh that sends cold shivers up the spine. We wonder if we locked all the doors and windows. We recall unproven but frightening reports of suspected prowlers.
Fear. Darkness, unfamiliar sounds, safety concerns combine to make us uneasy at the least, immobilized at the extreme. And yet it is rarely such physical, identifiable circumstances that cause most of our fears. More often it is the nagging anxieties that increasingly cripple our spiritual and emotional wholeness. We hem in our children for their protection – “it’s a dangerous world,” we say, yet are our fences also in response to the fear that we may somehow lose a child and grief would be unbearable? We relentlessly climb the career ladder to provide financial security, but could one of our reasons for such aggressiveness be that we fear losing our identity if we fail at the job?
Closely examining our fears can be uncomfortable – “even deeply disturbing” but often it is only when we discover the base reason for the fear and openly name it before God that we can discover his antidote. Knowing and claiming promises such as ‘children are a gift from the Lord,’ or ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love’ can be a giant step toward releasing us from fear.
Lord, I don’t like admitting my real fears because that is such a glimpse into my inadequacies and lack of trust. But I know that you are trustworthy and want me to grow in my faith. I do believe; help my unbelief. Amen
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