You came near when I called on you; you said, ‘Do not fear!’ You have taken up my cause, O Lord; you have redeemed my life.
Lamentations 3:57-58
Jeremiah writes as one who knew fear. Read the entire chapter in Lamentations to gain a better understanding of all Jeremiah experienced. He witnessed the siege and destruction of his beloved home, Jerusalem, and everything that came with it.
Fear seems to be our default setting. I can attest to this because, at an early age, I already feared fire, slugs, the monster under my bed, and losing the people dearest to me. As an adult, my list of fears has lengthened. Take a look around you, glance at the news, and make your own list. Earthquakes, floods, shaky governments, mass shootings, anyone?
When my list of fears runs rampant through my head, my mom’s words come to mind: “you can’t live in fear.” I often ignored her wise advice, because facing the world without fear wasn’t my natural response.
And because of sin, wasn’t that once the case for all of us? When we were, by nature, separated from God’s love, we had everything to fear. We lived our lives looking over our shoulders as we shrank back from pain, death, and despair.
Even while we existed in this state of “being afraid,” Jesus didn’t shrink back from us. He drew near, took on our flesh, and willingly experienced what should have been our pain, our death, and our despair. Our Savior conquered all through His death on the cross and His resurrection from the grave.
Christ defended our cause, bought back our lives, and gifted us with a new default setting—His own spirit. And this is not a spirit of fear, but “of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” (1 Timothy 1:7)
Through Christ, daily live out this new default of faith and rest in God’s love—a love that casts out all fear.
Katherine Dubke '14
CUI Senior Admissions Counselor