Psalm 56:3-4 "What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee. (4) In God I will praise his word, in God I have put my trust; I will not fear what flesh can do unto me."
There are many phobias of which people suffer. I personally am afraid of
heights and snakes among other things. What a combination! Right? What do
you fear? I have heard people say they are not afraid of anything. The folks
from Grace Church know my answer to that, but I will say it again: I don't
believe them. That sounds judgmental, but that's how I feel. The
right giant has not come along in their lives at this point, but when it comes
along fear will accompany it.
I do not associate fear with King David; yet, I'm sure there were many things
that troubled him. Back in Psalm 42, he spoke of being disquieted within his
soul. In other places, he called upon the Lord to help him go against his
enemies. In today's Psalm, he did not say "IF I am afraid." He
said, "WHAT TIME I AM AFRAID." We all have our fears and we
know the Word of God teaches us that "God has not given us the spirit of
fear." (2 Timothy 1:7) It is a part of our humanity that we
inherited through our sin nature. It is a fact of life and today's
thoughts speak to the manner in which we deal with fear.
There are things that take us by surprise and we often react to them. Reactions
to events can bring results that we later regret. I have been so guilty at
times of having knee jerk reactions by saying or doing things that I later
regret. It is important that we come to terms with this thing called fear so we
can respond rather than react. Responses require being prepared. We often see
Rapid Response Teams practicing for cases of emergency needs. It is so
important to have responses as a second nature when under stressful situations.
David was prepared to respond when fear would take hold of him. His plan was a
perfect plan of response. "What time I am afraid, I will trust in
thee." He was training his mind and heart to respond to whatever caused
fear to rise up. How do we practice this plan of response? It seems to me that
the best way to be prepared for those larger things is to practice trusting the
Lord in smaller things. A simple request of "Lord, please help me" is
a good beginning. One very good way to be prepared is to study God's Word to
see how the saints of old trusted and were encouraged in the Lord. When we read
the Word of God, let us go beyond the events that took place to see the hand of
God upon those individuals. David would surely say to us, "When you read
about the battle against Goliath, concentrate on the fact that the Lord God
Almighty directed that stone to the forehead." He would tell us to focus
on the source of our help and strength. "IN GOD I will praise His
Word."
Leaning on the everlasting arms of the Almighty God is the proper response to
situations that are out of our control. Trust Him!