Free From Fear

David was used to dire affliction and his appeals to God for help show his confidence that God hears him. He allows his personal relationship with God to get him past his fears and trials. 
Some think that this Psalm was written on the  occasion of the treachery of the men of Keilah (1 Samuel 23) or it was the period when Absalom had rebelled, and David's court advisors had fled from him; it was a time when lying lips spread a thousand malicious rumors against him (2 Samuel 15). 
Either circumstance would present fearful times.

Psychologists tell us that we are born with two fears, the fear of falling and the fear of noise; but we soon develop many more. Nothing in all my study of psychology helped me overcome fear. Fear has stunned and stifled me in so many ways. 
For years,  there was not a test for what was truly rational versus what was irrational... or what was truth versus what was a lie. 
I was never taught to overcome fear, but rather fear was ingrained in me from an early age. My mother and father were both religious, but were of different faiths. My Catholic father dominated and so Catholicism was a way of life for our family. The first ten years of my education were in a Catholic school. The message that came across to me from home and church was that I had to be good or I would go to hell. That belief alone was sufficient to generate fears-everything resulted in death and hell! It was like living in quicksand. Confession, contrition, and penance would rescue me, but was always short-lived. I had no spiritual understanding of death, but what I had heard added to my fear of death.  
I left the Catholic Church when I was 18 and I quickly traded one religious denomination for another even stricter cult by way of marriage; believing that I would find peace in a closed denomination of structure. Here I received 'elder visits' when my outward appearance and acts did not match the definitions and rules of the church community. 
 By my early 30's, fear was shutting my life down and had become multifaceted. I had a husband and children - my life on the outside seemed wonderful, but the inner turmoil was stifling. There was never peace and I could never stay busy enough to stop my fear-based thinking.
After my last child was born,  I had become angry with a god that held me in this quicksand, who wasn't loving or kind, but strict and never pleased. I created a huge devastating mess for my children when I left my husband.
Finally some dear friends counseled  with me and said, "The God of the Bible is not the god you learned about as a child. Read the Bible for yourself and you will see Him differently. He really does love us, He will heal us, and He will set us free." That was the first time any hope had risen up in me and it was enough to send me to the Bible for answers. I reconnected with the church,  but stayed away from both of my parents' and late husband's  denominations. It took years of study-listening and learning-before I finally understood that these fears were in control of my life because I allowed them to control me. I finally understood that it was not God's intent that I should fear anything. Rather He desires that I would trust Him, rely on Him, and be confident of my eternal existence with Him.  
That is what David does over and over in Psalms - he turned to the God for answers. And that is what I endeavor to do today - seek God when fear tries to hold me hostage. Truly Jesus Christ sets us free.

Galatians 5:1 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
  

Created 9 months ago