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Responding To Your Fear
from October 2021
Gò0dNews for Everyone
Responding To Your Fear
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by Dr. Alan Hix
October brings with it many things. We look with anticipation for the changing of the leaves as they paint the landscape in vivid color. County fairs and fall festivals populate the calendar. After a pandemic hiatus, many people will celebrate the return of Halloween. This popular holiday focuses on all the things that scare us.
I was curious to see what different people are afraid 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 us, God provided us with a wonderful resource in the book of Psalms. Particularly, in the Psalms of lament, we find that the writer is feeling overwhelmed by a dire situation. He will start by pouring his heart out to God, and his pain is evident in the passion of his expression. The writer then shifts gears and begins to express a hope for God’s deliverance. This hope does not come from his circumstances, which remain rather bleak, but it is based 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 trapped in the chokehold of his circumstances. In the middle of his distress, he expresses his hope in God based on his trust in God’s righteous and loving character.
We see this beautifully expressed in Psalm 13. “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me” (ESV).
That ability to see beyond our fears and our circumstances into the loving eyes of our Savior is a blessed gift God has bestowed upon us when we placed our faith in Him. This perspective is also found in Edward Mote’s hymn, My Hope is Built on Nothing Less:
“When darkness veils his lovely face,
I rest on His unchanging grace;
In every high and stormy gale,
My anchor holds within the veil.
On Christ the solid rock I stand!”
About The Author 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.
