Psalms 56

Psalms 56

Everyone is largely affected by their fears. Our fears can even be our puppeteer when we give in to them. Even among the professing Christians there is much fear. Many prayer requests that are voiced are fear based. Rather than for the peace, strength, direction, building of character, the beatitudes, the fruits of the spirit, or becoming more like Christ, our prayers are for specific answers to take away the problem. Why do we fear certain situations, circumstances and things so much? If we truly believe that He orchestrated all things to come together for our best, we can stand in peace, eyes closed, looking up and take a deep breathe


I am still striving towards this myself. Allen has been dealing with a Staph infection. It has been difficult to not let fear of the medical bills grip, or the fear of what if he gets worse? It is easy to pray for an answer to what is causing the fear, but I forget at times to pray also for letting the fear itself go. To pray for peace and wisdom and then leave it at His feet and go in confidence.

Different people are susceptible to different levels of fear. Some just naturally are more nervous people. Others have a learned fear. Wyatt, our youngest of 18 months wasn't the least bit bothered by the thunder. Until his older siblings started in with the pretend screaming with each boom. After several times, the little man was so scared he was trembling and no longer trusted me when I would gently coax him that "It's ok."

I read a great book years ago, How To Stop Worrying and Start Living. Another great read...and of course another Dale Carnegie book. He talks about compartmentalizing our fears. Look at it. what is the worst thing that will happen if this fear happens? How will I handle it? What will I do? Then accept it, know the answer and put it in a box and snap on the lid and forget about it until it happens and when it does, you've already thought it through and have some options. That's the short wrap up version of what I took away.

This helps with the logical side of things and in that box, we can throw in another note, that we can trust in God. Fear itself is not a sin, it is what we do with the fear that can be. God understands our fears and there are times when they are legitimate. vs 5 tells us that even David was afraid, and choose to trust God. Vs 3 tells us that when we are afraid we too should be bold to choose to trust in God. So the next time we are faced with fear, instead of going to friends for advise and prayer, we can go in confidence to Him who has the answers and trust that when He tells us, "It's Ok." that it really is.

Highway Horror

We were on our way back to college after a fun weekend trip to a friends home. The windows were down to allow at least the breeze in since it was scorching hot outside and this car had no air-conditioning, in fact, we were lucky it ran at all. And with the windows down, we actually had a nice cross breeze with the holes in the floor board.We were singing to whatever song we could find on the stations in the middle of Kansas on some little mostly unknown highway.

It was the quickest route between Manhattan and Wichita. There are many things in life to fear and many things to fear in the flat lands. I had been in Wichita on two separate occasions when there were tornadoes, but this threat was even worse.

On a long stretch of quiet highway we enjoyed the beautiful sights of the pastures and sky. There were several tractors working in the fields and mowing in the ditches. Up ahead of us, there was something covering the entire road for as far as we could see. As we neared, it looked as if all the grass from the ditches has been thrown onto the highway. I glanced into the rear view mirror and could see the blades floating into the air as my 82' chevette cruised through at it's top speed of 45 mph. Any faster and it would shimmy so badly it was uncontrollable. As I glanced in the mirror again, my delight turned to curiosity with the way the leaves were tumbling through the current. Then even more strange was the way the blades were rising in the still air in front of the car before we even got to them. Then my curiosity turned to terror as suddenly one of the "blades" landed on the windshield. It was then that we realized it was too late to turn back that we were in the middle of a swarm of large grasshoppers.

I started screaming, trying desperately to roll up the window that had lost the rotating end to grasp ahold of. "COVER THE FLOOR HOLES!" My arms were literally shaking and my knuckles turned white as I held tightly to the wheel. Soon enough we were on open clean road again. Both of us sweating. The sound of pure silence. Then as we look at each other, I was able to start laughing at our life threatening event was now over. I rolled down the window again. My dear friend in all her wisdom asked me to pull over that she needed to get out for a second. When we stopped she open the hatchback to free about 20 grasshoppers that unknowingly to me, had joined us. I hate to think what would have happened it one would have jumped on me. After all, my dad had placed a bumper on the riding lawnmower when I was young after I had a couple of accidents like running into trees, cars, etc., in pursuit of trying to get them off me or abandoning the mower all together while it was going.