Fear

I prayed to the LORD, and he answered me. He freed me from all my fears.

Psalm 34.4

 

A story

 

The hospital monitors light up like fireworks, flashing and alarming that your loved one is in danger. In angst, you cling to your husband as you witness controlled chaos in the paediatric trauma bay in the emergency department.

Like a scene from a movie, the multitude of healthcare workers move swiftly with precision, performing life-saving tasks on your little one. Leaders shout orders, but the most important doctor’s order is, “Save this precious life!”

Precious indeed! That’s your child!

You look at your darling child and close your eyes. Calming your frantic emotions, you collect your thoughts and gather the knowledge of God and his healing power from the deepest recesses of your heart. Uncertainty and fear shout in your heart a barrage of “what if’s.” Ignoring them, you continue to pull from your heart what little you can recall from his word, wishing you would’ve read it more often. Your thoughts turn to God, “I know you can heal, Lord, but will you?”

You hear the trauma surgeon call out, “They’re not responding to the fluids. Infuse two units of O negative blood stat!”

Fear violently sweeps over you, flooding your mind with thoughts that God won’t answer your plea for help to save your child. Panic squeezes tighter, overwhelming you, making you contemplate punching the unrelenting doctor in front of you in the throat. You ask God to forgive you for such thoughts and plead for his help. You just want to see your child alive.

 

A letter from God

 

My Brave Child, 

Accept my great waves of love and peace, godly love so strong and passionate, that your heart can’t contain the fullness of it. Waves of my healing grace will collide with your fearful thoughts, mightily washing them away. You believe that I can, but you’re afraid that I won’t. Perfect love dissolves fear. It did for a precious man who had leprosy.

He was forsaken, stripped of dignity, and cast aside as trash. This deadly skin disease was transmitted by skin-to-skin contact. Law required he yell “Unclean!” when approaching people, publicly degrading himself. He was despised and banned from the community, but I loved him deeply.

He was forbidden to touch or be touched, but he was desperate and running out of time. Leprosy was killing him. He fell at the feet of Jesus and worshipped, saying, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” Reaching out his tender hand of healing and compassion, Jesus touched him and said, “I am willing!” And instantly the leprosy was completely washed away.

He was fearful that I wasn’t willing to heal, fearful that I wasn’t willing to touch him in his worst condition, fearful that he wasn’t worthy. My love outrivals all fear, no matter the type. I defeated fear. In my word I lovingly said, “Don’t be afraid.” One “don’t be afraid” phrase for each day of the year, including leap year.

 

A Scripture

 

You came near when I called you, and you said, “Do not fear.”

Lamentations 3.57

 

A Prayer

 

God, Sometimes fear cripples me like it did the man with leprosy. Cleanse my mind and revive my trust, enable me to renounce all fear leaking into my heart, give me courage to plug the leak through the name of Jesus Christ who gives me power and authority over fear. Whether fear comes as a trickle or a tsunami, remind me that your perfect love casts out fear and that I’m safe in your love.

In Jesus’s Name, Amen.

 

Reflection

 

Belief in God’s Word is a deposit to receive God’s faithful promises and provision.

 

1.     How can knowing and believing in God’s will for you to live without fear change your thinking?¹

 

In loving someone, you trust and believe them. When you believe God’s love for you, it washes away fear because you have no concern. You’ll believe the word of God is true; that he loves you unconditionally, he’ll never hurt you. He knows the end from the beginning; he strongly desires to work out everything for your good and has nothing but phenomenal promises for you.

 

2.     How can accepting God’s pure, holy, and unrivalled love erase fear in your life?

 

3.     How would you live if you believed the above statement to its fullest extent? Write down what that would look like. Imagine yourself living that life, then boldly live it!

 

 

¹ Understand that not every story or experience has a happy ending, but he brings recompense, whether it’s here or in heaven. You can trust and believe God’s process of healing that only he can accomplish. You can’t do it by yourself. You need him.

 

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