On Fear

Prayer is the best outlet to fear: where is the Christian that cannot set his seal to this direction?   Flavel, John (2010-08-03). Keeping the Heart (Kindle Locations 669-670).   Kindle Edition.   

Psa 118:5  Out of my distress I called on the LORD; the LORD answered me and set me free.  ESV

In times of danger  no matter its magnitude  fear is natural.  Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the acting upon it.  What greater thing could we do than to go to our Father with all our fears.

Isn't Christ, our intercessor and Great High Priest, seated with the Father speaking of us and for us?  Does not Christ appreciate and understand our weaknesses and vulnerabilities?

If, as we see in the quote above, Satan knows and exploits our fears, does not our Father know more and better?  In all things fearful is it not enough that nothing can separate us from the love of God?  Surely upon that assurance we can stand.

But we are weak as babes in our walk with Christ  as we should be.      Though we lived in the wiles of the Devil and the fantasies of the flesh, we do not know living in the security and power of our Lord.  So we tremble and quake as Satan and our budding/immature faith both work to our distress.

Trusting God is not something that just comes.  It is gained by experience, informed by His Word and enhanced by His Spirit.  I have trusted God in many situations and yet every new situation raises the hair on the back of my neck.

I wonder, God was faithful there and then but this is here and now.  Even though I know that when it was then and there for me, He was already readying here and now for me.  But I still fear.

 
I've noticed something, though, about that fear.  It is characterized by the question, What am I (or we) going to do”?  Perhaps that's where we get tripped up.  We face a circumstance and supposing we must or can do something, we start with ourselves.  Seeing no help for or in ourselves, we fear.  Because we are already afraid we think we don't have faith.  Because we think we don't have faith we doubt God will help us.

Perhaps were starting at the wrong place.  Perhaps we need to take the circumstance (and our fear) to Him immediately and ask Him what we need to do (if anything).  Perhaps we need to slow down, examine the circumstance and take our thoughts and concerns to Him and have a talk. 

 
I wonder if at times I irritate Him (LOL).  I try to take circumstances to Him and leave them with Him but it doesn't work very well.  I've found that I need to stay before Him and take the time to pour out my ideas and thoughts concerning the circumstance.  If I don't, I find myself fretting and distracted.  So I try to go to Him and just babble out my ideas, my tangential concerns, my solutions, my fears.  It seems that this process has a quieting effect on my soul.

But just recently, I've discovered that I rise from prayer too swiftly.  I'll pray and then get into bed and I'll just go on trying to fix the problem in my head.  I think that, at those times, I need to get back on my knees and continue the conversation  obviously, I wasn't done (or maybe He wasn't). 

 
Ok  for those of you who are thinking, Do I have to be on my knees,  Ill just tell you that I do.  As I've intentionally worked on my prayer life, I've discovered that it just feels more like prayer when I'm kneeling.  Do I have to?  I don't think I have to for Him  but I do for me.  That's just me  and we all know I'm just not right. 

 
Prayer is worship  but it is conversational worship.  I speak, He listens.  How He responds is unclear to me  I haven't heard voices yet.  But I trust Him to respond because He always has.  Either through the Word, a change of circumstance, another believer, a random sermon I hear, a random book I read, or even a random thought, He answers.  Oh, I know none of those things are really random.  They are intentional and purposeful  so maybe utterly unexpected is a better term.  But the point is, He answers.

Concerning the verse I used above.  Notice that the writer says that God set him free.  The term distress has the sense of tightness, like when your chest gets tight when you are anxious.  Now the writer doesnt say what his freedom looked like.  Was the circumstance changed or was his anxiety relieved?  But would we complain of either?  I hope not.

Dont let yourself think that you should only do this for the big stuff.  Make it a habit to do it with everything.  Pour, it all out to God.  What seems trivial today may loom large tomorrow, so you may as well get a head start on it.