When I am Afraid
How are we supposed to handle fear?
Verse of the Day
“When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. In God, whose word I praise— in God I trust and am not afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?”
Today’s Devotional
I wonder if many of the struggles I have in living out my faith is due to an underlying lack of trust. I wonder if we don’t seek God’s Kingdom first because we don’t trust Him to help us with everything else. Maybe our lack of trust is based in fear.
What are you afraid of? And I’m not talking about spiders and snakes. We all have things that keep us up at night or sneak into our brains when we least expect it. Fear, worry, anxiety…you can call it whatever you want. What do we do with those things?
I love that this verse says “when I am afraid” not “if I am afraid”. God knows that we are prone to fear. “Fear not” is in the Bible many times. And that is proof to me of how much God loves me. He is aware of my weakness and that I’m prone to fear and He speaks to that.
These verses makes me realize that trusting God is a choice. To embrace a life of faith, I MUST trust God. And I need practice using my “trust muscles”. When I am afraid, do I choose to trust God, or do I roll around in the fear? For me, this is one of those “rubber meets the road” situations. Let’s say that my finances are tight, and that makes me fearful. My human instinct is to roll around in the fear, which looks like this: “What if I can’t pay my bills? What if I can’t pay my car payment, it gets repossessed and I can’t get to work. Oh my gosh, this is bad. How am I going to afford school clothes for the kids? If their clothes are old or too small, they might get bullied. I certainly can’t afford a therapist for my child who is being bullied. How am I going to manage this?” Fear, my friends, is a very slippery slope if we choose to allow our brains to go there. It gets even worse if we allow our brains to stay there.
So what is the alternative? The message of these verses. This is the alternative. The rubber meets the road when I make an active choice to trust and praise. Going back to our example, choosing to trust and praise might look like this: “God, my finances are tight and I’m scared. I trust you to provide what I need. I trust you to help me to know how best to spend the resources you have given me. I praise you for caring that I’m scared. I praise you for your love for me. I praise you for allowing me to bring my fear to you. Help me to trust you and praise you today.”
I’ve learned some things on my journey. One of them is that we must do things before we can understand them. I think that is what God is asking for with our trust. I may not understand why He wants me to do something, but I still need to obey. The understanding can never come before the obedience. So I need to choose to obey this verse. I need to choose to trust and praise in the middle of my fear, even when I don’t understand how it can possibly help.
We are called to trust. Even when it’s hard. Even when we are scared. We are called to praise God in the middle of our fear (and in the middle of everything else). Maybe the praise will help us to trust. And the Scripture says that IF we trust, the fear will leave. That’s a pretty powerful statement. For me, it’s a circular process. There is fear, I choose to trust and praise, it gets better. Then the fear comes back, so I have to start over. Every time I get back around to the fear, I must choose to trust. And praise. I think releasing fear and embracing trust and praise is a lifetime learning process. I just have to be willing to start. And to come back to trust and praise every time I notice myself rolling around in the fear.
Journal Prompts
Answer only the questions that seem relevant to you today.
What are the things that you are afraid of? If you don’t know, then think about what causes you to worry – that’s where you have fear.
What does your trust and praise narrative sound like about those things?
How can you be obedient today with trust and praise, instead of waiting for understanding?
How can you praise the God of creation today?