I’ve been having trouble having time to actually write something for this blog. So here’s something I wrote last September.

All too frequently I find myself at a place of disquiet and unease, kind of like the psalmist who wrote, “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?” (Psalm 42:11 ESV) Sometimes it’s caused by a sharp dread of something identifiable, like a tough relationship, medical report or change of some sort. Other times it’s from something vague and nameless that hovers about and tries to take over. I’ve come to understand that the bottom line of the disquiet, whatever the source, is fear.

I’ve been feeling this fearfulness for a few days now. I don’t like it. My mind and heart churn; the rest of me wants to come to a standstill. I have to battle not to give in to it. I have to take myself by the scruff of the neck and pay attention—heed—to what God teaches me in his word. Let me say that it is not easy to hold back from diving headlong into fear, but it is absolutely essential that we do.

When I feel fear creeping over me, I retrace my steps back to 1 Peter 3. It’s a well-worn path that serves me faithfully: “let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious. For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. And you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening.”

Oh, how I want to be adorned with the imperishable! beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, so precious in God’s sight! I want him to look upon me as a daughter of Sarah who submitted to Abraham (that’s another post, perhaps?) and did not fear anything that was frightening. The only way I can resist fear is by taking hold of the assurance of God’s word and trusting in his sovereignty over every event in my life. (I wrote about that in this post: Quietness and Trust.) I am much more vulnerable to fear when I have not taken sufficient time to be nourished by the word of God, to read it and heed it on a daily basis, throughout the day. Sometimes it requires greater chunks of time and effort. That is the first “good” that I do that gives me the courage not to fear whatever is frightening.

I have long loved what Oswald Chambers says: “trust God and do the next thing.” The next thing of “doing good” gets me moving, exhibiting my trust in God’s sovereignty. Whatever it is—washing a dish, encouraging a friend, doing laundry, tackling the dreaded task—the next thing moves me out of self-centered fear to God-centered and other-centered obedience. I can then echo the cast-down psalmist who ends the above sentence by saying to his own soul, “Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.”

So here I am, writing what I know to be true, facing fear eyeball to eyeball, and doing the next thing. And on to the next…and the next….