May 31, 2018

Fear Not

Psalm 139:1-2   “You have searched me, LORD, and You know me.  You know when I sit and when I rise;  You perceive my thoughts from afar.”
  
I’d been tossing and turning for the past two hours, and so I finally gave up and reached over to turn off the scheduled alarm so it wouldn’t go off and wake my husband.  I put on my slippers and head to the kitchen for a cup of coffee and sit down in my prayer room, longing to spend time with my dearest and closest Friend and the lover of my soul.  I’m exhausted; it took me forever to fall asleep and I didn’t sleep well because my head is filled with fear and doubt.  Why is it that when I get into fear, doubt always seems to creep up and rear its ugly head?  I know who I am and I know that my God knows me and sees me, so why do I put myself through these mental gymnastics?  I already know the answer before the question is even posed -- I’m human and that’s what we do -- we fear, we doubt and we continually fall short of knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that God has our best interests at heart.

Isaiah 44:8 says, “Do not tremble, do not be afraid.  Did I not proclaim this and foretell it long ago?  You are my witnesses.  Is there any God besides me?  No, there is no other Rock; I know not one."  Over and over again in the scriptures we are told not to fear, we are told not to be afraid, and we are told not to doubt.  We are also told God knows us intimately better than we know ourselves, that the plans He has for us are for good, that He knows exactly where we are physically, spiritually, mentally and emotionally and that He is the God who sees us, who loves us and whose thoughts about us outnumber the grains of sand.  We belong to the Creator of the heavens and the earth, He is the Rock of our salvation, the giver of life and breath, and the One who flung the stars into the sky – He personally knows my name and cares about every single detail of my life.  So if I know all of these things, why do I tremble and why am I afraid?

Philip De Courcy in his book, “Emergency Rations,” says, “One need not fear a known present or an unknown future if one understands that God knows all about us, what we are going through.  Our knowledge of His knowledge of us is a great comfort to the anxious heart and affords the believer a place to stand amidst the swirl of changing circumstances.  To know that we are known to God and loved by God is all we need to know when the chips are down and the problems of life are piling up.”  The truth is that I have a very personal God with unlimited resources who is available to me at all times, but many times, I don’t take advantage of His power, His might and His peace that passes all understanding. Instead, I become fraught with stress, overcome with worry, laden with doubt and awash with fear, hundreds of forms of fear.  When I come to this place, then the enemy of my soul tells me I’m not really loved, I have no significance and that God really doesn’t exist and therefore I have no purpose, no destiny, no future and no hope. That’s really the bottom line, isn’t it?  The devil wants to rob me of my hope.
  
When my child died, my grief took me to dark places of hopelessness where at times I stayed for awhile, but always at those lowest points in my journey, whenever I met with my personal Savior, my closest Friend, He would always remind me He is my only hope and that in Him I know my future, I know my destiny, I know my purpose, I know that my child is in heaven and I will one day see him again. So I must conclude He knows me, He knows when I am sitting and when I arise each morning, He knows my thoughts before they are even formed and He understands exactly why I do what I do, and so He has taught me to daily pray the most important prayer in the Bible, which is this: “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” (Psalm 139:23-24.) Amen.

                                                                     – Melody