You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day, nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness, nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday. Psalms 91:5-6
As God’s child, you are exhorted at least sixty times throughout the Word of God not to have fear, with several of these instances being Jesus himself giving the exhortation. Looking at things in the natural, there would seem to be plenty of reasons to be afraid, especially toward the end of Jesus’ time on earth as the Son of Man. It looked as if the religious leaders and the devil were getting the upper hand and finally, they were able to take Jesus into custody and, after a sham of a trial, condemn Him to death.
With the advantage of hind-sight, it is clear that the disciples had nothing to fear, for everything was in the Father’s hand and came together just as Jesus had told them it would. You can see a similar situation when Moses came before Pharaoh and commanded that he let God’s people go. Time after time, Pharaoh resisted and it could have been a fearful, even deadly situation for Moses, but God had already told him how Pharaoh would respond. Nothing takes the Lord by surprise — He always knows the end of the story!
Now, to our verses for today. When the Lord says “you shall not”, what He really means is “you shall not”! That’s right, the Lord means what He says. That might be all well and good for everyone else, but your situation is different, correct? You have valid reasons for walking in fear and being afraid. It would seem as if that is the case from your perspective, and indeed the same could be said for everyone when they look at life through the lens of their own understanding. But the third chapter of Proverbs says not to lean on your own understanding, so there has to be a way to obey these verses.
Those night terrors can be a challenge since they come at you in the dark — at night. One of the more challenging aspects is the fact that they do not have to be based on facts or truth at all since they have the help of your imagination and thoughts to seemingly bring them to life. These terrors hide in the shadows just beyond reach and distinction so that it is the assumption that something terrible is lurking there that is the source of the fear.
It is, however, not just at night when you have to fight this fight. There are plenty of things in broad daylight that can cause you to be afraid, if you let them. Arrows constantly flying and destruction all around because of the effects of sin in the world. You see all these things yet, as a child of the King, you do not walk by what you see, but by faith. You live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
As long as you are in this world, you will not be able to eliminate every evil or every destructive force that is a part of this world system. You cannot even keep these things away from those you love. But what you can do is overcome the fear of these things and have confidence in the God who created you and loves you with an everlasting love; the God who loves those you love more than you ever could, for He loves them perfectly. When you put your trust in your loving heavenly Father, you shall not be afraid!
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