The Devotional – 1415 – The sign of the time; “NO FEAR”!

The Devotional – 1415 – The sign of the time; “NO FEAR”!

Proverbs 29:25 – The fear of man brings a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD shall be safe. (The word “safe” literally means to be set on high).

 

 Comments and challenges

What does it mean for you and me to have fear? Men and women alike face dangers all day long, some of these dangers we expect and move into without much consideration; one of which is driving a vehicle. Whether we know it or not, there are more people (just in the United States alone) who die or who are injured for life in automobile accidents annually than in any war we Americans have faced. So there is this fear, but it is accepted!

Fears that seemingly come out of nowhere (like a potential auto accident), or the feeling of someone watching you, fears like these are a daily experience of life and we are aware to be on alert. Once when I was a child I had just finished with supper and we were always to bring our dishes to the kitchen sink so mom could clean them up for the next meal. As I went by the window that faced the side of the house where the driveway was I thought I saw someone staring in at me.

Another quick look and yes there was someone there; I threw my plate right through the window only to see my cousin’s face. His smile faded as his eyes became as large as the plate. No one got hurt thankfully as the screen stopped the broken pieces of window and plate, but my dad was not happy it was winter and now we had a broken window. This kind of fear is one of those characteristics that is not debilitating but none the less it is always ready to make itself known.

There are other, more intense fears; fears that cripple us mentally and if not corrected will cause real physical harm as the years roll by, in fact the physical harm of unchecked fear is more injurious to the body than any physical injury caused by an auto accident or broken window. These fears have caused most people of the nation we live in to become “drug dependent” Anxiety, depression, loneliness, obesity, guilt and other phobias not mentioned. Now you do not have to worry, go ahead and mention yours… no one is listening except the One who really cares and will help.

In every Book of the Holy Bible there are events recorded of fear and of how people dealt with the moments of fear or the season of time having to face various fears. In Genesis 12:12 Abram (Abraham) was afraid for his life before the Egyptian (Pharaoh) so Abram caused his bride, Sarai to lie. Please take the time to read Genesis 12:10-20. Now guess what? If you do not deal with the fears in your life you will repeat your lie sometime in the future. Note Genesis 20:1-18.

Someone has said; “there is nothing to fear except fear itself” I believe that was Winston Churchill; I suppose I could google that as I have a fear that I might be wrong and yes it was his contemporary, Theodore Roosevelt! Yep, it is a good thing my fear directed me to google it, sometimes fear works in our favor. So you can easily see that fear is one of those conditions in a person heart that always positions itself to either bat you around like the rubber ball on a rubber string attached to a wooden paddle or warn you that the paddle is approaching. Who holds the paddle? We do.

We deal with fear every day; most debilitating fear is the result of a lack of faith, not in yourself, but in God; note that if you know the paddle is coming you know enough to avoid it. Debilitating fear is different; we do not know enough to deal with it, so to solve these we turn to drugs instead of God. One thing about a drug, we can never stop taking it for fear that we will go out and commit the very thing we fear which is “living or having purpose for living”.

Without Faith in God there is NO reason to LIVE because the purpose to LIVE does not exist in our mind. I want to do more with this “fear and faith” in the days ahead so I will stop for now. Thank you for reading these devotionals, I hope you find them challenging. I know when I read these as, God will challenge me! I read each one, more than once each day. Have a godly day, for God is totally in your day whether you care to know it or not.