Don’t be afraid, for I am with you. Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up with my victorious right hand. [Isaiah 41:10 (NLT)]
“Don’t be afraid,” he said. “Take courage! I am here!” [Mark 6:50 (NLT)]
Recently, our pastor asked us to write down both a prayer concern and a joy that anonymously could be shared with the congregation. Once compiled on a sheet of paper, the list was made available to anyone who wanted to offer those worries, needs and joys to God in prayer. As expected, most of the joys had to do with family, friends, health, and God’s love and forgiveness. Most of the concerns also were what we’d expect: health and the health of loved ones, finances, government, family turmoil, and children. At our Florida church, we start our weekly Bible study with prayer requests and praise reports and the list from our northern church was remarkably similar with one glaring exception. One person wrote, “I’m always afraid.”
Those words have haunted me all week—“I’m always afraid!” This person brought his or her concern to the right place—God and the church family but what now? Always afraid doesn’t mean a few quirks like fearing thunder, spiders, or mice. Always is a continual state of fear and, out of concern, I wanted to know more. Is the fear pathological? Does this person have irrational fears that make him or her paranoid? Is psychological counseling what is needed? On the other hand, is there a basis for the fear? Is it fear that a secret, like addiction or adultery, will be discovered? More likely, could there be violence or abuse in the home? You don’t have to live in Afghanistan, Syria or Nigeria to live in a war zone. My first response upon reading those words was wanting to fix the problem; yet, I am powerless to do so. I don’t even know what the actual problem is let alone who is involved. Moreover, it is not mine to fix nor am I qualified to do so. Nevertheless, my heart cries for anyone who lives life in fear.
While I can’t offer a solution, I can pray with compassion for this fear filled person. I can pray for God’s gifts of courage and perseverance—courage to relinquish the fear and perseverance to continue through the difficulties and setbacks that are sure to arise. Whether that means reaching out to our Pastor, seeking counseling, finding a shelter, or making some other change, I don’t know but, without courage, perseverance and trust in God, the fear will remain.
Heavenly Father, throughout Scripture, you’ve commanded us not be afraid and yet some of your children live in fear. Knowing that your grace is sufficient and your power is made perfect in weakness, we lift their needs to you. May they come to trust your guidance; fill them with courage and perseverance as they find refuge and strength in your loving presence.
After struggling with the writing of a devotion, it was finally finished. Thankful, I listed its completion in my gratitude journal that night. The next morning, I discovered it was lost—vanished into thin air and nowhere to be found (and believe me, I tried)! Looking back, I probably cut the devotion from my “Work On” file but got distracted and never pasted it into my “To Post” file. Unfortunately, by the time I discovered my error, both files had been saved in versions without the words over which I’d labored so long. When it became clear that those paragraphs truly had vanished into the black hole of my computer, I was annoyed with myself and upset, upset enough to want that thanks entry crossed out in my gratitude journal!
I’m in the midst of reading a series of seven children’s fantasy novels, The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis. Some of them, like The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, I read as a girl but others are new to me. The world of Narnia is a world to which one wants to return again and again and I’m enjoying my visit ever so much. C.S. Lewis, however, was much more than a writer of fantasy, non-fiction and poetry; he was a well-known lecturer, a brilliant scholar and a renowned Christian apologist.
The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship. Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make him known. They speak without a sound or word; their voice is never heard. Yet their message has gone throughout the earth, and their words to all the world. [Psalm 19:1-4 (NLT)]
I found an odd synchronicity in my morning’s reading. The verse for the day was Matthew 7:12, the Golden Rule: “Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you.” Following that was a story by Christian author and speaker Lysa Terkeurst. She wrote about speaking to a group when a woman walked up on stage, stood next to her, and then leaned into her. Standing before an audience of 6,500 women, unsure of what to do, the author simply put her arm around the woman and continued speaking. The woman later said she needed God and thought if she got close enough to the Christian speaker, she just might feel Him. The third portion of my reading included the above selection from C.S. Lewis’ writings.
The words Soli Deo gloria, meaning “glory to God alone,” were the words at the end of the actor’s bio in the show’s playbill. The addition of those three words in his brief resume was the actor’s way of acknowledging the source of his talent and dedicating his work to God’s glory. I thought of those words when someone flattered me recently. While I knew “Glory to God alone,” was not the right response, I wasn’t sure what was.
