4 Truths to Walk from Fear to Faith
Do you let fear take root in you and cause you to give way to panic and hysteria? When we look at life just with our own eyes, do you become fearful, pessimistic, & negative? Are you ready to get out of that pattern of living? In the last blog, we learned the value of studying the lives of Old Testament women. We also learned why connecting with their stories shows how we can trust God today. This is post #2 in the “Fear to Faith” series covering why and how you can learn to trust God with your fears. In this post, you will learn four essential truths that will help you successfully walk from fear to faith in your life.
Listen to this post as a similar podcast from our Everyday Women, Ever-Faithful God Bible Study:
The Gift of Fear
How fear feels
You know that feeling. The pit in your stomach, pounding of your heart, and rush of your thoughts as you go from just the possibility of a job loss to being homeless on the streets—all in a matter of seconds. Gripped by fear.
I can remember times in my life when something happened suddenly that caused that creepy-crawly feeling down my back. One night, a feeling of fear for my oldest daughter’s safety hit me in the chest. I quickly prayed for her protection. Of course, she did not answer her phone when I called. So, I had to wait until the next morning to hear from her that she was okay. What a scary night!
Fear is an ever-present emotion with me and with most women. Real fears and imagined fears. Is it realistic to think we can live without fear? No!
Why fear is a gift
As crazy as it sounds, we need to think of fear as a gift. I bet you have never thought of fear as a gift, have you? Hear me out.
Fear is a normal human emotion designed by God to alert us to danger so that we will take action against it.
Fear before sin
Fear as designed by God has a purpose. Take for example the initial response to the coronavirus pandemic. Fear of the virus affecting ourselves and our loved ones spurred us to action. We repeatedly scrubbed our hands, sprayed doorknobs, and light switches with Lysol, wore gloves to go to the grocery store, wiped down every item brought into our house, and disinfected even our mail. This was a proactive response to something dangerous.
Healthy fear is a gift from God. God used it in Genesis 2:17 when He told Adam not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, “for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” Adam was to take action against the potential danger by not eating from that one tree.
Jesus used healthy fear with the lame man who was healed,
Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” (John 5:14)
His general appeal to the public to believe in Him included a healthy fear.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. (John 3:17-18)
Fear alerts us to danger so that we will take action against it. It has a purpose.
The dark side of fear
But we know fear has a dark side as well. I heard Jill Briscoe once say, “Women are a fear-driven, performance-oriented species.” She is right. Just reading the daily Facebook feed can panic us. Fear-driven. But, what does fear drive us to do? Usually, nothing good. Am I right?
Fear can take root in us and cause us to give way to panic and hysteria. Are you prone to that? When we look at life just with our own eyes, we become fearful, pessimistic, & negative. We think to ourselves, “Nothing’s going to work. I don’t know if I can get through this.”
What God Wants Us to Do When We Are Afraid
Yet, God knows this about us. I am so grateful for that! He does not want us to stay there—disoriented and hopeless. When we look at the Bible and see how God helped everyday people like you and I, the Holy Spirit uses that to strengthen us and give us courage that we did not know we had.
God gives us the answer—Himself! He also gives us the action He wants us to take.
When I am afraid, I will trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can mortal man do to me? (Psalm 56:3-4)
The Bible does not say, “IF I am afraid.” It says, “WHEN I am afraid.” Fear will happen. And, when we are afraid, God wants us to trust Him and not give way to fear. If fear alerts us to danger, the most significant action is to not give into fear but to trust God with whatever needs to be done.
How do we learn to not give into fear? The answer is to stand firmly on 4 consistent truths so that we can walk from fear to faith. These are our Four Truths to Walk from Fear to Faith.
Truth #1: God loves you.
John 3:16 says that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, Jesus, so you could believe in Him and receive eternal life. You are part of that world that God loves. And, once you accept His gift of eternal life through your faith in His Son, you get even more of God’s love for you.
Paul wrote in Romans 5:5 that God pours out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us. As a believer in Jesus, the Father Himself loves you. He pours out His love into your heart so you can experience that love.
As a believer, you can say to yourself with confidence, “I am God’s child, His daughter, totally loved and accepted by Him through my faith in His Son Jesus Christ. Not convinced yet? Read “Hannah: Believe That You Are Dearly Loved.”
You can count on Truth #1 — God loves you.
Truth #2: God knows what is going on in your life.
Jesus knew that His followers were stressing about food, clothing, and shelter. Those essentials for daily life. Here is what Jesus told them,
“…do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the [unbelievers] run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.” (Matthew 6:31-32)
In Psalm 139, David describes how God is everywhere and knows everything about him. And, that is true for you. God knows everything. He sees everything. What has happening to you is not behind some lead door blocking his x-ray vision. God knows what is going on in your life and in my life. If He does not, then He is not really God.
He knows your needs and how best to meet those needs. We will explore this more in “Sarah: God Is Bigger than Your Weaknesses.”
You can count on Truth #2 — God knows what is going on in your life.
Truth #3: God can do something about it.
“Is anything too hard for the Lord?” (Genesis 18:14) That is what the angel of the Lord asks Sarah in Genesis 18. Since the angel lives in heaven with God, he should know. So, is anything impossible for the Lord? The answer is, NO! Another angel declared the same thing to Mary in Luke 1:37, “For nothing is impossible with God.”
Both of these statements are made to women. We need that assurance, don’t we? Our God is all-powerful. He has the power and know-how to take away the suffering, to provide the job, to change the threatening situation, whatever “it” is. He is capable of doing anything He chooses to do. But, what He chooses to do will always be in agreement with His character and His purposes. We will explore this also in “Sarah: God Is Bigger than Your Weaknesses.”
You can count on Truth #3 — God can do something about IT. Whatever IT is.
Truth #4: You can trust His goodness in whatever He chooses to do.
This is the sticky part, isn’t it? Can you and I believe that God is always good? I have an idea of what I think His goodness to me should look like! I bet you do, too. And I can think of a billion ways that He can be “good to me” that do not include bad things. I bet you can, too.
The Bible says this:
God is good, and what He does is good. (Psalm 119:68)
Here is some wisdom from Proverbs,
Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; (Proverbs 3:5)
It is a choice to trust God and bank on His goodness. You and I must make our choice to trust His choice of how to be good to us. We will explore this more in Rahab: God Is Good All The Time.
So, here’s Truth #4 — You can trust His goodness in whatever He chooses to do!
A Biblical Example
One of the best biblical examples of these four truths in action comes from John 11. Martha informed Jesus that her brother Lazarus was sick.
- Jesus loved Martha and her sister Mary and Lazarus (John 11:5).
- Jesus knew what was going on in Martha’s life—Lazarus died (verses 6, 11, 14).
- Jesus could do something about it—He had healed from a distance (John 4:50-53).
- But Jesus chose to do something different, even better than what anyone could imagine. Yet, His choice caused pain and suffering to those He loved and a lot of waiting, too (John 11:14-15).
After 4 days of being dead, Lazarus was brought back to life, and good things happened. God’s goodness showed up—Lazarus had his life restored. His sisters saw their now healthy brother returned to them. The disciples witnessed an amazing work of God. And, many people now believed in Jesus who had not yet believed in Him.
Martha could now say to herself with assurance, “God loves me. God knows what is going on in my life. God can do something about it. I can trust His goodness in whatever He chooses to do.” The same is true for you in any situation.
Your Walk from Fear to Faith
Dear friends, God may not choose to rescue you from everything that is threatening you. But in any and all situations, you can embrace these truths, making them personal…
- God loves me
- God knows what is going on in my life
- God can do something about it
- I can trust His goodness in whatever He chooses to do
You can count on that!
In the next post, we will see from the life of Sarah that God is bigger than your weaknesses—all of them!
Let Jesus satisfy your heart with His faithfulness, so you will choose to trust Him with every fear.
All of the above information is covered in the Everyday Women, Ever-Faithful God Bible Study or the shorterThe Walk from Fear to Faith Bible Study.
Related Resources:
- Satisfied Series 1 podcasts (Old Testament women)
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