When I Am Afraid

When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. Psalm 56:3

 

When my older granddaughter was  two or three she was afraid to climb open stairs. She and her family were visiting a friend who observed her fear and taught her to climb the stairs reciting Psalm 56:3 (top) as she went. With each step she would say a word of the verse. She was at the top of the steps quickly and without fear because she was thinking about the words, not the climb.

Lately, I have found myself with that feeling of fear as lots of things seem to leave me with the feeling that I might fall fast and hard if I am not really careful.  At the top of my “fear list” is fear for our nation. I fear judgment of the downward spiral of our nation as unelected men make a ruling that dismisses God’s law and ignores His sovereignty.

At the same time I am watching the battles rage between Christians about how to handle the decline of Christian values in our culture. At a time when we should be standing firm for God’s Law as a united group, we are falling into factions and fighting about what “love” looks like.

In Paul’s second letter to the Corinthian church, he says to them, “But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.”                                                                                                               2  Corinthians 11:3

As I really examined some of my fears for us as a church and us as a nation, this is one of the biggies. As our nation moves away from the Laws of God, will we, as God’s people, move with them? Will cunning arguments and deceitful teaching  move us away from a pure devotion to Christ?

So many things I have read that have been written by professing Christians sound as though they have not learned what God says about the major issues of our day (and every day). As long as we are teaching people to love one another, they believe they have done enough.

That should make us afraid as we consider who is defining this love. Love has been redefined so it means that we should not offend. We should not confront sin. We should not speak Truth to those who do not already believe. In fact, it seems many are more afraid to offend another by confronting sin or speaking the truth to them, than they are of God’s judgment of that sin.

A small child can learn that when she is afraid, God’s Word can be her source of courage and strength. How about adults? Do we believe that even when we are afraid to speak the truth to unbelievers, when someone has blasphemed God, when there is sin in the camp, that we can turn to God’s Word, to His Law, and know and learn, and stand firm in the truth of it?

If a two or three year old can put God’s Word into practice, so can we. She needed to memorize and remember Psalm 56:3.

We may need Proverbs 29:25, “The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD is safe.”