Fear
Today’s Scripture Selection: Psalm 27:1-2
So what stops us?
What stops us from learning, growing, reaching out, reaching in, testing, loving, answering God’s call – or a thousand other things we might imagine?
Often, too often, I think it is fear.
None of us is immune, though some try to pretend they are.
Fear can reach out and grasp us even when we think we are most in control. In fact, some who use control to an extreme may ultimately be the most afraid among us.
When we are caught up in this – there is a Scripture worth recalling:
“The LORD is my light and salvation – whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the stronghold of my life – of whom shall I be afraid?”
Those words come from the 27th Psalm and are credited to David, the shepherd King.
As we know from his story, David was many things:
- A shepherd boy who saved his people by fighting a warrior by the name of Goliath
- A valiant general who won many wars yet also wrestled with his own inner battles
- A king whose kingdom set the stage for Christ’s kingdom to come
- An adulterer, who sent the husband of the woman he chose to death on a battlefield
- A broken, humbled sinner who lost a child to death, and who, in begging forgiveness found new life for himself and his people
- A man after God’s own heart
What a study; so much complexity and such an example for us all.
Not because he was perfect. Not because he never feared or wrestled with those fears – but because he did.
And it this man who, according to tradition, penned those powerful, haunting words:
“The LORD is my light and salvation – whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the stronghold of my life – of whom shall I be afraid?”
David understood how fear can stop us in our tracks.
And he knew the way past that fear.
He knew the way to God.
Prayer: Father, when I am fearful, touch me with your strengthening presence, that I may face that fear – and bravely move beyond – to wherever you would have me go. AMEN.
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