On Fear and Peace

You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is stayed on thee (Is. 26:3).

 

I will take refuge under the shadow of Your wings

until the disaster has passed me by (Ps. 57:2).

 

We were just getting ready to leave for church when the mailman arrived.  Opening the latest statement from Blue Cross/ Blue Shield, I read that they had denied my claim for the gall bladder surgery in July and that I now owed the hospital $39,000.  The doctors' bills had not yet been recorded.

 

Fear gripped my heart almost to the point of hyperventilation.  I could hardly breathe.  But we headed out to church -- the mailman's timing could not have been better.  During the Mass, I realized that I had a choice:  I could focus on the potential problem with the fear and worry it engendered, or I could turn in confidence to God.  On the one hand was fear; on the other was peace. 

 

Immediately as I began to focus on Jesus, my spirit seemed to embrace the words, Your Father in heaven knows that you need these things.  Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and everything else will be given to you besides.

 

Later, this came to me:  If you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, "Be removed and cast into the sea," and it would obey you.  The more I focused on the Lord, the more peaceful and calm and assured I felt.  Since I could not call the insurance company over the weekend, it was so good to feel the peace of the Lord and later, to be able to fall asleep without worry that evening.

 

One of the promises given to us in the Old Testament is that God would put His law in our minds and write it on our hearts.  Here, His "law" means His instruction, His teaching, His guidance, and it is given to us at our hour of need.  The benefit of being familiar with the written word of God is that is jumps off the pages for us when we need to hear it, when there is no time to "look it up." 

 

This morning, as I went to my desk, I found my inspirational calendar still turned to Aug. 11 (today is the 16th).  And here was the Scripture quotation and commentary:

 

Take therefore no thought for the morrow (Matt. 6:34).

 

Have we been slandering God by worrying when He has said, "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you"?

 

Now, as I have time, I can go through the psalms and find one passage after another that comforts me:

 

But for those who fear you, you have raised a banner to be unfurled against the bow (60:4).

 

On my bed I remember you;

I think of you through the watches of the night.

Because you are my help,

I sing in the shadow of your wings.

I stay close to you;

your right hand upholds me (63:6-8).

 

It is good to have a storehouse of Scripture to keep us in peace in time of danger or threat of danger. Over the years, I have marked, underlined, and annotated my Bible, even dating certain passages.  Today, those passages stand out for me as I page through the Scriptures.  But even better, they stand out in my mind when I do not have access to the Book  -- and they allow me to sleep peacefully at night!