Many of us, I think, spend much of our lives running scared, only to find when we do have courage enough to stop, turn, and face whatever it is, it was usually only a phantom. Isn't it amazing the hideous, manufactured monsters our imaginations can conjure up? A lot of us have a kindred testimony with that of Mark Twain, "I've lived through some terrible things in my life; some of which actually happened."
I believe a large number of us fit the description of people the Psalmist speaks of: "There were they in great fear, where no fear was." You know, we've all experienced them: "I think I heard something"; What if the doctor says..."; "But what will I do if this should happen?" The list is legion. President Franklin Roosevelt's quote comes to my mind, "The only thing to fear is fear itself."
We speak of the eternal torments of the damned, but what of the earthly torments of the fearful? John tells us, "...fear hath torment." O, the paralyzing effect fear has upon a soul! It holds like a vice, making it impossible to move either this way or that. As Paul says, "You cannot do those things ye would." How we need to realize whenever this unhealthy fear comes upon us, it is not of God, "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear." Be bold, rebuke such satanic spirits in the name of Christ!
Either God is completely in charge or He isn't. If He is at the wheel, then there is nothing to fear. A little boy on board a ship was asked, in the midst of a ferocious storm, why he seemed to have no fear." His answer, "My father is captain of this ship, and he has brought me through worst storms than this."
"Be not afraid of sudden fear."
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