Fear Not

What difference does it make to say "Fear not." I have told my kids not to be afraid many times but God thinks it should make a difference if he commands it? The difference is that this command is always followed by "I am/will be with you." That makes all the difference in the world, doesn't it? Psalm 124 is a marvelous remembrance of the blessing of God being on your side, beginning with a call and response format to recollect what would have happened if God hadn't been on Israel's side.

The reality of the command, however, is that there will be reason for fear to enter the picture but we are to focus on the truth of the promise of the presence and in that we can take comfort rather than fear. We aren't meant to be traveling companions with fear, wherever we go. We are meant to follow Him and know His presence with us, that there is nothing formed against us that is greater than the love of God towards us. Read Romans 8 and Psalm 23 today and rest in the presence of God no matter where you are in your life today, these truths are the antidote to fear, the promise of the presence of God and the love of God.

Fear Not

Fear not, the words that cause more fear than any other. Until I became a senior pastor I could never figure out why God had to tell Joshua, of all people, to be strong and courageous and not be afraid. Now I know why He has to do that, it is much easier, with far less to fear, to be the number 2 guy. Leadership brings responsibility and risk at a completely new level and requires a whole other level of courage. Joshua and Caleb had been the only two whose counsel was to enter the land but after Moses dies the Lord has to repeat the admonition to not fear multiple times in the first nine verses of the book of Joshua. Before that, in Deuteronomy, Moses' valedictory speech, Moses has said this to Joshua.

All through the Bible what we hear is God necessarily telling people who have agreed to follow Him not to be afraid. Abraham fears foreign rulers and pretends his wife is his sister, Jacob fears Esau and has the wrestling match with an angel, Moses fears both Pharaoh and the people and God has to send Aaron with him, Elijah fears Jezebel, Peter fears a slave girl in the courtyard of the high priest and denies Jesus.

Following God in obedience to His call brings us into some fearsome situations because He takes us out of our depth, over our head, into a place where only He can act. Situations where we can't solve or resolve something tend to cause fear in our lives and He specializes in taking us into those places. The Bible is a collection of such stories, God's faithful people brought to the places where He can reveal Himself through extraordinary means but that generally requires us to go further into faith than is comfortable for us, places where either faith or fear emerges. If we would see and know God, those places are necessary. If we would have greater faith, we must follow to those places.

Hearing the voice of the Lord

One of our lessons for tomorrow is Psalm 29, one of my favorite passages. I was in Rwanda several years ago and a bishop told me at 3 in the afternoon on Saturday that I would be preaching the next morning in the cathedral church. I had no idea what to preach to a congregation of people who had lived through genocide and basically opened the Bible randomly and this Psalm caught my attention, all about the voice of the Lord and its power.

As I thought about that passage I was in the midst of trying to figure out what the Lord was saying to me as far as my future was concerned. I read that passage and just started wondering if the voice of the Lord could make the wilderness shake and the strip the forests bare why could I not hear Him tell me what to do. It's hard to know sometimes what He's saying although I got the short-term clarity I needed that time.

What I ended up preaching is that as far as I can tell there are four words we can always depend on as having come from Him, "Follow me" and "Fear not." They seem like a paradox in that if I agree to follow the Lord whose voice brought forth all that is and who can do the things I read about in Scripture why would He ever need to say "Fear not." It seems like that would be the safest place in the world, what is there to fear. It isn't a paradox though. Think about it and tomorrow I will say more about why.