The first week I started re-reading the Bible chronologically this new year, I was struck by the phrase, “do not fear.” Days later I was diagnosed with osteoporosis. “But you eat so healthy!” my strong-boned eighty-nine-year-old mother-in-law protested.
I was blindsided, too. I’d hoped my lifestyle would overcome my genetics but vaguely noticed that sometime since high school I’d shrunk. My mother, uncle and cousins also had osteoporosis—one cousin a dozen years younger than I. I’d never been prescribed a long-term drug in my life before, but everyone I knew, including my doctor-daughter, opted for the medication my local doctor recommended, so off I went to the pharmacy.
As I was leaving, the pharmacist called, “Do you have any questions about your medication?”
“I’m not thrilled about it,” I turned to answer, and he brought up the very concerns my casual research raised—along with more. At home I began researching in earnest, tossing my meds under my nightstand where they remain unopened.
I felt alone and fearful. One tumble, and I could break! Plus, I was also diagnosed with sleep apnea. I told my next doctor that I didn’t have much time to spend on my health. I had writing to do! But instead of instant cures, I discovered complications. I had to relearn the simplest things: better ways to eat, move, sleep, even breathe! Months later I’m still dealing with my diseases but trying to trust God, discern His direction and fight my infirmities rather than fear them.
I first came across “do not fear” in my daily reading of Genesis 15: “After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, ‘Do not fear, Abram, I am a shield to you; Your reward shall be very great’ (verse 1).” In the previous chapter, Abram and three hundred eighteen of his trained men, along with his Amorite allies, had just defeated the great King Chedorlaomer and his allies: three kings that helped Chedorlaomer subdue the land and several lines of giants. You’d think that after such an astounding victory, Abram would fear little on earth.
God had already assured Abram two chapters earlier, “all the land which you see, I will give it to you and to your descendants forever. I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth, so that if anyone can number the dust of the earth, then your descendants can also be numbered” (Genesis 13:15-16).
God’s magnificent promise apparently fails to calm Abram’s fears about his heir. Immediately after God tells him not to fear in Genesis 15:1, Abram responds in the next verse, “O Lord GOD, what will You give me, since I am childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” Not waiting for God to answer, Abram proposes a solution: “Since You have given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir” (verse 3).
The best of us has trouble believing God’s promises at times. And frequently, we think we’ve got a better idea than His. Abram’s wife also thought she could help out God with the heir problem. Her solution established a catastrophic enmity between peoples that persists all over the world (Genesis 16).
Rejecting Abram’s “better” idea, God reassures him and reiterates His original promise with another metaphor (Genesis 15:5): “‘Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them’. And He said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be’.” Abram now believes in the Lord, and God reckons it to him as righteousness (Genesis 15:6).
Believing God’s promises is an impressive act of faith God Himself counts as righteousness. Abram’s faith soon seems to falter, however. God tells him in verse 7, ‘’I am the LORD who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess it’.” Abram responds in the next verse, “‘O Lord GOD, how may I know that I will possess it’?”
God does not rebuke Abram or restate His promises with yet another metaphor. Instead, He formalizes them as a solemn covenant involving terror, darkness and death. For the rest of Genesis 15, God doubles down, adding details and prophecy to His covenant with Abram. In Genesis 17, God changes Abram’s name to Abraham as part of the covenant He delineates yet once more, extending it to Abraham’s descendants and making it everlasting.
In Genesis 26:4-5, God tells Abraham’s descendant Isaac, “‘I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven, and will give your descendants all these lands; and by your descendants all the nations of the earth shall be blessed; because Abraham obeyed Me and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes and My laws’.” God not only makes the covenant personal to Isaac, He makes it personal to us, promising to bless all nations through Isaac’s descendants.
Isaac is struggling with his neighbors, so God assures him:
“I am the God of your father Abraham;
Do not fear, for I am with you.
I will bless you, and multiply your descendants,
For the sake of My servant Abraham.” (Genesis 26:24)
I love that our trustworthy God comforts, blesses and wants us to have no fear!
My Old Testament reading today began with my life verse, written by another of Abraham’s descendants:
The LORD is my light and my salvation;
Whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the defense of my life;
Whom shall I dread? (Psalm 27:1)
When David penned this and other psalms, he was hiding for his life from Saul. My New Testament reading in Acts 13 said that Saul was king 40 years (verse 21). Though anointed king himself after Saul’s disobedience to God, David waited years for his turn to be king—a decade at least, maybe two! Meanwhile he wrote his psalms. I got teary thinking of him singing his songs on the run, hiding in caves and wilderness, cut off from the land and people he loved and comforting himself with the thought of God’s faithfulness in the face of human treachery and life’s hardships.
Continuing in Psalm 27, David writes:
Though a host encamp against me,
My heart will not fear;
Though war arise against me,
In spite of this I shall be confident (verse 3).
It’s hard to be confident these days. It was hard in David’s days as well, but David based his confidence in God. David says in verse 13, “I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD / In the land of the living.” I frequently say in response to current events, “If not for God, I would despair.” In Him, however, we have a great hope and future. An eternal hope and future! David ends Psalm 27 with verse 14: “Wait for the LORD; / Be strong and let your heart take courage; / Yes, wait for the LORD.” This man after God’s own heart knew how to turn fear into faith. My continuing reading in Psalms 34, 52 and 56 featured yet further examples. King David, in the line of the Abrahamic covenant, was an ancestor of the ultimate King, Jesus, the descendant through which all nations are blessed and the One who ultimately saves His people from all fear.
My last Psalm of today’s reading was 31, where David addresses God and reveals a different take on fear (verse 19):
How great is Your goodness,
Which You have stored up for those who fear You,
Which You have wrought for those who take refuge in You,
Before the sons of men!
We need fear nothing on this earth or in eternity but God, and we should fear our loving Father as David did: with respect, joy, confidence, obedience and love.
David ends Psalm 31 the way he did Psalm 27: “Be strong and let your heart take courage, / All you who hope in the LORD” (verse 24). In my last post, I published my song, “Be Strong,” based on Joshua 1:9, but it could’ve been based on David. My reading in 1 Samuel 30 sums up David’s strategy. When Amalekites burned his city and took the inhabitants captive, those following David “wept until there was no strength in them to weep” (verse 4.) They also spoke of stoning David, but in his great distress, “David strengthened himself in the LORD his God” (verse 6). Instead of weeping in the face of disaster, we we can be strong like David when our faith is in God. Except for fearing Him, we should have no fear.
All Bible quotations from the NASB.
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