Isaiah 41:10  “So do not fear, for I am with you;  do not be dismayed, for I am your God. ”

I’ve lived with Fear all my life.  I can remember laying in bed as a child surrounded by 40+ stuff animals begging God to keep me safe and not to let me die during the night.  As I grew older, Fear kept coming.  Maybe you’ve dealt with some of these like I have…

• Fear a loved one would get hurt while traveling
• Fear you would be alone
• Fear that your health would fail
• Fear that the pain you were feeling was something more than just a pulled muscle
• Fear that you wouldn’t have enough money to pay bills
• Fear that what you are dealing with in life won’t change or get better

It seems that the older I’ve become, the more I realize I can’t escape from Fear.  It pursues me in the night waiting to flood my mind as I begin to dream or to wake me up from peaceful sleep to dwell on areas in my life I can’t control.  It slithers around the corners of my days and waits to roar in my jungles of stress.  At times, I feel it grab my chest and pull wanting to take all that I have and leave me frail, cold, and shaking.

Yeah, I’ve known and lived with Fear.  Until…

See, God doesn’t like for His children to be picked on by the bully in the school yard.  He doesn’t believe that His kids should be beat up and left bruised and bleeding, and for too many years, that was me.  Fear had picked me up and dumped me into the trashcan one too many times and then, I let God show me something.

Take a look at Isaiah 41:10 again.  “Do not Fear..”  Three words that we’ve all heard usually said by the angel to Mary in the Christmas pagents, but I want you to take a moment and REALLY look at them again.  Do you see what’s standing behind those words?  God is telling us something INCREDIBLE in those three words.  Can you see it yet?  If not, let me help you a little.  His words are telling us something about Fear, something that Fear never tells us.  See it yet?

Try this.  Complete this phrase:  “In order to obey God and ‘Do Not Fear,’ I must ___________ to do this?”

Got it yet?

It’s “choose;” God is telling us that Fear is a CHOICE and that we have the POWER to choose NOT TO FEAR!

Think about that for a moment.  Fear is nothing more than a thought that gets us mentally going in the wrong direction.  It’s a thought that we give credence to and say, “Yes, that has a really good chance of happening” and then we start letting our mind play out the scenes of what could happen if our fear would take over and win.  We dwell in the movie room of our minds watching horror flick after horror flick not realizing that we have the ability to yell “Turn on the lights!” or hit the power button on the remote to turn the movies off.  God says we have a choice.  How come Fear never told me that?

So how serious is He about Not Fearing?  How about saying it over 300 times in the Bible?  Yeah.  300+ times.  Think maybe we are being a little hard headed in this area?  But you know what?  He doesn’t leave us there with our choice and His command.  He knows that Fear is powerful, and we view ourselves as being too weak to fight, so He takes it one step further.  He states what we need to hear the most, “… I am with you!”  He isn’t the distant dad telling us to stand up to the bully on our own and then report back what happened.  He’s the Dad that rides the school bus.  He’s the Dad that walks into the hall where the lockers are.  He’s the Dad who escorts us and DARES anyone to touch us.  Fear cowers before God as all bullies do when they meet REAL STRENGTH.

“‘Do not fear, I am with you!’  Don’t cringe when that thought enters your mind.  Throw it out, because I’m with you and it’s not real.  I AM the only thing REAL.  I AM the TRUTH!  Ignore the thought.  Turn to me and don’t listen to the lies.  And when the lies wrestle with your mind for control, take my words and cling to them.  I AM in control.  You are safe.  Nothing can happen that I don’t allow and won’t walk with you through.  You are NEVER alone.  I AM with you!”

Father, help us to remember that Fear is just a thought; a thought like any other thought we have.  And just like any other thought, we can stop it, ignore it, throw it out, change the subject, but it MUST obey us.  And when Fear doesn’t listen, we can turn to you, look in your face, bury our head in your chest, and let you be Dad.  Let you fight for us.  Let you gently remind us who you are and that we are your kid and Fear can not do anything to us.  You’ve got our hand in your hand, and we are safe.  Father, help us as we live this life choosing not to fear and to live boldly as your children.  Thank you, Lord, for this gift of your presence.  In your name, Jesus, we pray.  Amen!

– R. Pierce