What to Do When You're Fearing the Worst
By Meg Bucher
“For the Lord your God is living among you.
He is a mighty savior.
He will take delight in you with gladness.
With his love, he will calm all your fears.
He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.” - Zephaniah 3:17 NLT
“I don’t think you need to be that dramatic about it.”
Those are some of the wisest words I have ever heard. It wasn’t injury that threw my stride off on my morning run; it was fear. I was so afraid of getting hurt that I let the power of fear whip me up into a frenzy over something that had not even happened yet.
“He will calm all your fears.”
Sometimes, when pain strikes, I forget that the Lord my God is living alongside me. When I’m afraid, I forget He is a mighty Savior who has never failed to rescue me. I forget that he delights in me with gladness when I feel sorry for myself. I forget His love calms my fears as I panic, searching for other solutions to calm my irrational mind. I forget that God rejoices over me with joyful songs as I deal with the dread my imagination has conjured up. What a powerful reminder today’s verse is in the face of fear.
“Instead of their fleeing in the face of danger (Zeph. 1:14),” the ESV Bible explains, “God can save his people from it (Ex. 14:30). So often, we allow ourselves to live in our worst-case scenarios before they become a reality. Fear is powerful. The phrase ‘do not fear’ appears 95 times in the New American Standard translation of the Bible. “Free” pops up 133 times. Jesus died to free us from fear, and in today’s verse, He reminds us why.
Intersecting Faith & Life:
The pain popped up in my knee, but the root of the problem was a misaligned SI joint in my lower back that didn’t even hurt! Fear of what that knee pain could be threw my whole stride off! It stopped me dead in my tracks! Into the doctor’s office, I went, looking for answers, feeling hopeless and sidelined before being diagnosed. Thank goodness I went seeking wisdom from the doctor that day! I needed to be told I was being dramatic. I was! Learning which pain is ok to run through is something I will have to become a student of if I want to participate in my sport as I age.
As we mature in our faith, we must decide what pain we are willing to walk through to follow Jesus. We are promised it will not be painless. And that can be scary. God is with us through it all. We are never alone. He will answer our prayers through His Word, other people, and countless other ways we know, throughout our days, He communicates with us. Mature discernment is challenging to develop and hard to keep on the rails when we are scared. The apostle Paul wrote,
“I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called—his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance. I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe in him. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms.” - Ephesians 1:19 NLT
God is not a killjoy. He wants us to live life to the fullest, not to live in fear. We don’t have to fear pain. We know it’s going to happen, and we can trust God to be with us through it – whether it heals this side of heaven or not. We can’t let fear throw our lives off balance, nor the fear of things that have not yet or may never happen put us on the sideline. The ESV Global Study Bible explains, “The “inheritance” here is not the Christian’s inheritance; it is his (God’s). God looks forward to enjoying forever the people he has saved.”
God loves us. He sees our fear and meets us in our overdramatic reactions with compassion, not shame. Our Father holds us accountable to the truth without making us feel bad about ourselves. He is so faithful. I hope I get to run around heaven injury-free, but until I find out, I choose to remember the joy I experience as I run each morning and know it’s a gift straight from Him, worth fighting fear for. Don’t let fear stop you from living the full life Jesus died for you to live, no matter how much stretching, icing, waiting, and realigning you must do to keep running your race.
Let’s pray:
God, You are so funny to call me out when I am being dramatic, and I love that about You. Fear is powerful, God. Help us to confess it daily, see it in our daily lives, and stop it from sidelining us from doing the things we love. You teach me so much through the sport of running, and I am so grateful for all of it. Thank you for teaching us how to run through the painful parts of life, God, and the wisdom to know the difference between pain, which needs to be treated, and fear tempting us to stop in fear of what the pain might mean. Bless us with discernment, God, so that we can seek and understand wisdom. Give us godly patience and remind us of your assuring love. Thank You for promising to calm our fears. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Further Reading:
John 17:23
Proverbs 12:8
Photo Credit: ©iStock/Getty Images Plus/Koldunova_Anna
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