To Fear or Not To Fear

When you leave your house to go to work, or the store or to bring your child to school or to anywhere to do anything, are you one hundred percent certain you will make it back  home in one piece, safe and sound?

Will your husband/wife make it to dinner?  Will your child come home after school? It’s a dreadful, morbid thought and the dangers are real and it could happen to anyone of us.

Read the papers, watch the news and we see that it happens daily all around us. Last week on my block two doors down, there was a break-in in broad daylight. Yesterday, I watched  a TV program (channel) which showcases real life crime stories of innocent victims who were just unfortunate to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Last night my friend told me that at work, they received a prank call from a drunk female  three times cursing at them. She had been a client of the program and although they thought it was nothing , there was an unspoken legitimate fear.

But while it is so,  fear should not stifle us for it is not of the Lord. In fact, we were given guidelines ( and I will only mention a couple from my devotion in response to my prayers and fear confession).

First, God established a known  fact that evil is inevitable in Ephesians 5:16b:

“because days are evil.”

and because  we know that our Father does not leave us at a dead-end, He must be saying “yeah the days are evil, therefore make good use of your  time.”

Essentially, it is a reminder and God made sure that we do not miss the point, that while we cannot change what is bound to happen, we can change our attitude and the way we approach life.

We redeem our time by making good use of the moments which others seem to throw away.
Does that make sense?

I don’t think God meant for us to create a bucket list of things to do and places to visit (although that is not a bad idea), but it is more like gaining useful knowledge and doing good to others. Striving to do the will of God and we pray without ceasing.

Second, God always leaves us with a promise and an assurance. Psalm 91:5-10:

⁵ You will not fear the terror of night,
nor the arrow that flies by day,
⁶ nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness,
nor the plague that destroys at midday.
⁷ A thousand may fall at your side,
ten thousand at your right hand,
but it will not come near you.
⁸ You will only observe with your eyes
and see the punishment of the wicked.

⁹ If you say, “The Lord is my refuge,”
    and you make the Most High your dwelling,
¹⁰ no harm will overtake you,
    no disaster will come near your tent.

In addition to promise and assurance, God provides us with our own body guards, too!

¹¹ For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways;
¹² they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

We are all vulnerable, but God is faithful.  And I always declare this:

My family is a family without tragedy, in Jesus name.

And all of God’s children say…?

*all pictures were taken off google page.

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