Tag: #fear

Faith over Fear – A Frightening World

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Our world looms around us. Its morality in tatters. Right is wrong. Wrong is right. 

This is the world our children have been born into. The world they will grow up in. This is their generation.

Do thoughts of this fill us with fear? If so, how do we, as parents, navigate these fears? Fears that our children will have to face the world with such realities or fears that they may be swept away in the tide of an ungodly culture.

I’ve been thinking about fear and the impact it has on us. Fear can paralyse us in daily living. It also impacts our decision-making in parenting. 

There is a woman in the Bible I have been considering. And I have been challenged by her response to fear in the frightening world she found herself in. Jochebed lived many years ago when Israel was a fledgling nation living in Egypt (see Exodus 1 and 2). The people of Israel were slaves under Pharaoh. Pharaoh was worried. The population of Israel was multiplying, and Pharaoh was afraid the people might rebel against him. His solution was to engage in some social engineering. He announced a new law that all Israelite baby boys should be thrown into the River Nile at birth; thus radically affecting population growth.

It is here that we first meet Jochebed. She was affected by this new law. She was expecting a baby and if it was a boy, which it was, he would be condemned to death in the river.  

What fear must have gripped her heart!

Jochebed and her husband had every reason to be afraid, yet in Hebrews 11 we read, “. . . and they were not afraid of the king’s command” (Hebrews 11:23).

Jochebed was not frozen in fear by the power of Egypt. She didn’t collapse in defeat, resigned to the inevitable death of her son. She did what she could, to preserve the life of her son. 

How did she overcome a very natural fear and have the courage to go against the king’s command? 

It was by faith. She had her faith in a great God. She looked on her newborn son and she saw him from God’s perspective. She saw the blessing, beauty and value of this child that God had entrusted to her. She hoped in God. She would not allow her son to be lost to the river so she hid him, in direct defiance of the king of Egypt. 

We can choose to have Jochebed’s vision. To see our children as blessings from God, of great value to God, and precious. When we bring God into the picture, we receive a vision of hope. I love how there is such a strong link between her faith in God and not being afraid. God loves our child and has a purpose for our child. We can look in faith to the future. We don’t have to give in to fear and despair, convinced our children will be swept away by the culture of this world. Jochebed believed God was greater than all the power of Egypt. She dared to hope.

We can learn from her example. We too have “a great God and Saviour Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13). The One who loved us enough to die for us. He has overcome the power of evil in this world. “Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it” (Colossians 2:15).

The Lord Jesus told His disciples, “In this world you will have trouble but be not afraid. I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

We will have trouble in this world, but we need not live in fear. 

Like Jochebed, we must have our faith anchored in God. We need a heavenly perspective.

Jochebed had a faith in God that overcame her natural fears. She had faith in God’s goodness despite the awful happenings she was witnessing all around. She watched with horror at the fate of children around her, but she dared to believe in more for her son. And she rested her faith in her God to bring it about. 

We do not know the future, and what is in store for our own children. But, like Jochebed, we can have faith in God.

Let us dare to hope for our children. That they will not just survive living in this world but they will thrive. That they will “serve their own generation by the will of God” (Acts 13:36). 

Reflections on Week 1 of Lockdown

inhisstrength2720 Comments

I don’t know about you, but I finished my first week of lockdown feeling like I had just emerged from a washing machine set on a fast spin.

My husband asked me on Friday evening if I was ok, and I had to answer, “No, I  am not ok”. But I couldn’t really say why. I couldn’t even articulate to myself why I wasn’t ok.

Emotionally drained.

It has been a strange week for sure. Unprecedented times. History in the making.

In many ways my week had been very easy. Neither myself or my husband are working on the frontline. We don’t have to self-isolate from each other or from our children.  My husband and children are healthy, and here with me. We are blessed with a back garden! And the sun has shone. And my 4 boys have got along pretty well all week!

I arrived into this week eager. Groceries had been bought, I was ready to hunker in and hibernate a bit. My introvert tendencies were having a field day! I was looking forward to having the children at home. I had planned our schedule. Discussed it with everyone. There was agreement and anticipation of the new daily routine. Even excitement.

And it started off well.

But somewhere in the middle of Tuesday things started to fray at the edges as far as my  epic routine was concerned and I trundled through Wednesday, stumbled through Thursday, and…kinda ground to a halt on Friday.

So what happened?

I can look back and easily see where I went wrong this week. I could make lists of what hindered me and what I neglected. But is there more to it?

We are trying so valiantly to keep our normality. Keep school going, keep music lessons going, keep afterschool activities going – Thank you Google and Zoom!

But maybe we need to allow ourselves to pause. Give permission to the emotions that are bubbling under the surface. The tension. The worry over loved ones. The fear for our economy and businesses. The fear for our hospitals, and doctors and nurses.

Perhaps we need to allow ourselves to mourn and grieve for what is coming. The threatening dark cloud that is poised over our land. 

Perhaps it is ok not to be ok.

Perhaps it is ok not to be getting through my to-do list this week.

On Friday evening my youngest son came to me to tell me that he is not liking homeschooling. Normally, we would shrug it off. So an 8 year old boy doesn’t like school. Newsflash!

But I could see the emotion behind it. The trembling chin. I had seen the signs of anxiety throughout the week. He was struggling. His little world was being upended. School  for him is hard. And now it has collided right into his living room. His safe space.

So this week I will be making some changes. Little things – to make it feel less like school. We may not get everything done. But that’s ok. 

This morning we gathered in our living room for our own little “church service”. We had told our boys that if they wanted to read a Bible verse or give out a hymn, they could. My 10 year old very sweetly said he wanted to read John 11 v 35, the shortest verse in the Bible. So he stood up and read “Jesus wept”. And he had a thought to share on it!

“Jesus didn’t come from earth, but while he was here he felt pain.”

Wow!

How true is that! In the moment of pain He felt pain. He knew He was about to raise Lazarus from the dead. It was all going to be fine, but it didn’t stop Him from feeling the emotions of the time.

It is tempting to think we should be ok about everything that is happening.

God is in control. And He is.

So we shouldn’t worry. But we do.

And that’s ok.

We don’t have to be ok with everything. God understands our fears and doubts and worries. We can bring them to Him. We don’t need to feel guilty that we are worrying.

“He knows our frame, He remembers that we are dust” Psalm 103 v 14

God is still glorified when we go to Him with our worries and fears and sadness. We don’t have to have it all sorted out, filed, and organised in our heads before we come to God.

We come, our messy selves, into His presence.

Come to Him with all the emotions this week has thrown up. He can handle them all.

And we can experience the blessing of knowing what it is to come under the shadow of the wings of the Lord God in whom we have come to trust.

Psalm 103 v 13-19

“As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for He knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. The life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children – with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts. The Lord  has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all.”