HomeWord - August 4, 2015

Fear

This devotional was written by Kelly McFadden

“When I am afraid, I will trust in you.” Psalm 56:3

I hate snakes. In fact, I even hate worms because they look like miniature snakes. One day, I was running down a dirt path and, out of the corner of my left eye, I saw something slithering. In one step, I had completely leapt from one side of the path to the other…and this was a wide trail. My heart was pounding!

It has been said that “fear is nurtured by ignorance.” Since I know almost nothing about snakes (except that they are horrible), I completely panic when I see a garter snake slithering along a path. A garter snake is completely harmless. A herpetologist, someone who is an expert on snakes, might be thrilled to see this little creature and, instead of jumping, might even stop and pick up the snake. (Gross!)

When we do not know the true God, we may well do the same thing I did with that snake. We assume He is like us and this alone is a terrifying thought. When we do not know the true God, we reduce Him to a mere mortal. And so our minds make our fears bigger than they really are and, sadly, bigger than He is.

In Psalm 27, David said, “The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear?” All of us have been afraid at some point or another. Whether it is a fear of rejection, fear of death, fear of sickness or even fear of the unknown, God is bigger than all of these things. Like David, we can trust in the Lord who is our light and who is our salvation; the same God who delivered us yesterday and today will do so tomorrow. He will give you the grace to conquer your fears so that you will not be held captive by them.

It is normal to experience fear. The key is making sure we do not let fear have the last word, but let the Lord be more than a conqueror in our lives!

GOING DEEPER:

1. What are areas of fear in your life that sometimes hold you back? What can you do today to start trusting in the Lord who is a light for your fears?

2. The Bible says to cast all your cares and anxiety on the Lord. Write down something you’re afraid of on a piece of paper. Then cross it out and write, “God is bigger.”