Dear Friend,
I’ve been singing a new song lately called FEAR NOT TOMORROW. It’s a great song but right now it’s pretty obscure and hard to find. It was written by a worship leader in a church which released it on an album of their own music. Maybe one Sunday we’ll need to learn this wonderful song to help make it a little less obscure! The chorus goes: “Fear not tomorrow, God is already there...” Isn’t it funny how just a few words of God’s truth can change your whole perspective on something? We can look at our past and so clearly see that God was working in our yesterday, but we forget that our timeless God is already working in our tomorrow.
And, have you noticed how it’s never our past that scares us, it’s always our future? It’s never the known of our yesterday that weakens our knees, it’s always the unknown of tomorrow. And yet is there really anything to fear about your tomorrow when God is already sitting there and just waiting for you to show up?
Wise Words:“The wise man in the storm prays to God, not for safety from danger, but for deliverance from fear. It is the storm within which endangers him, not the storm without.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
We can struggle to admit our fears out of a “fear” that to do so would somehow reveal a weak and untidy Christian faith. But fear is a normal human response to perceived danger. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus was distressed and in agony over His impending death, and God responded by sending an angel to strengthen His Son’s faith. In His despair, Jesus experienced both the human emotion of fear and divinely strengthened faith. And, we too can experience that tension between fear and faith when we face our future. Fear creates dark clouds of doubt that make it difficult to see the presence of God. But faith overcomes fear and we fear not our tomorrow, for God is already there.
One night a house caught fire and a young boy escaped the flames by crawling out of his bedroom window and onto the roof. The rest of the family had already escaped through the front door, and now the father was on the front lawn calling to his son to jump off the roof and into his arms. The boy was terrified. With the swirling smoke and the darkness of the night, he was unable to see past the edge of the roof. “Jump!” yelled the father. “I can’t!” screamed the boy, “I can’t see you!!” The father replied, “I know son, but I can see you and that’s all that matters.” And the boy jumped safely into his father’s arms.
Even when the darkness of fear swirls around us, our faith is what reveals the unseen presence of God. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1) Let’s jump into our future with faith knowing that God is already waiting for us with open arms. AMEN?
