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Responding To Your Fear
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by Dr. Alan Hix
ctober brings with it many things. We look with
We see this beautifully expressed in Psalm 13. “How
anticipation for the changing of the leaves as they
long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will
paint the landscape in vivid color. County fairs
you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel
and fall festivals populate the calendar. After a pandemic
in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? But I
hiatus, many people will celebrate the return of Halloween.
have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in
This popular holiday focuses on all the things that scare us.
your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt
I was curious to see what different people are afraid
bountifully with me” (ESV).
of—so, I sent out a request to my Facebook friends to share their fears with me. Not surprisingly, few responded. I wondered if some were afraid of sharing the things they were afraid of. From this experiment, I found that some of my friends were afraid of snakes, heights, falling, jellyfish, and anything that files and can sting. On a more somber note, others said rejection, not feeling good enough, and being alone. A quick perusal of social media exposes an endless variety of fears. As believers in Christ, we know that we belong to the creator of the universe, and nothing is outside of His sovereign care. We know this in our heads, but on the ground where we live, it sometimes feels the opposite. For those times when our fears threaten to overwhelm
That ability to see beyond our fears and our circumstances into the loving eyes of our Savior is a blessed
us, God provided us with a wonderful resource in the
gift God has bestowed upon us when we placed our faith
book of Psalms. Particularly, in the Psalms of lament,
in Him. This perspective is also found in Edward Mote’s
we find that the writer is feeling overwhelmed by a dire
hymn, My Hope is Built on Nothing Less:
situation. He will start by pouring his heart out to God,
“When darkness veils his lovely face,
and his pain is evident in the passion of his expression.
I rest on His unchanging grace;
The writer then shifts gears and begins to express a hope
In every high and stormy gale,
for God’s deliverance. This hope does not come from his
My anchor holds within the veil.
circumstances, which remain rather bleak, but it is based
On Christ the solid rock I stand!”
on his trust in the character of God. The writer realizes that he is not alone, he is not defeated, and he is not hopelessly of his distress, he expresses his hope in God based on his trust in God’s righteous and loving character.
20 // October 2021
About The Author
trapped in the chokehold of his circumstances. In the middle Dr. Alan Hix is an Associate Professor of Christian Studies at Shorter University. In addition to being and educator, he has served churches as a pastor, been involved in mission trips to Africa, Canada, and Alaska, and participated in archaeological excavations in Israel for several years.
