Living in Fear?

“…The same power that concurs the grave lives in me…” These lyrics, from the song You Are Here, are very encouraging! In church this week, we talked about fear. It’s something we all deal with every day. But it is something that we should be able to overcome if we are constantly walking with the Lord.

There is a story in Daniel 6 that we can refer this to and it is the one about Daniel and the Lions. Daniel was a hard and faithful worker, one who never did anything wrong, which made the other workers jealous and in result they wanted him fired. Although they couldn’t come up with any way to get Daniel fired, except to have him disobey the king. So the workers went to the king and told him how great he was and how no one should pray to anyone except him. The king agreed that this was a great idea and asked if all the employees knew about this new law he was going to create, and all the employees said yes, they all agree it should be a law. But it ends up Daniel was not informed. The employees knew that Daniel prayed at home three times a day to God so they gathered around to watch him. That evening they came back to the king and told him that Daniel had been praying to his God. As much as the king hated to he commanded Daniel be thrown in the lion’s den, since he disobeyed his commands. The king told Daniel, “I hope the God you pray and serve will rescue you.” The next day the king came back to see if Daniel’s God saved him, and indeed he did. God had sent angles to shut the mouths of the lions and when Daniel was removed from the den there was not even a scratch on him. The king then declared “Daniel’s God is great, and I order that everyone in my kingdom must respect the Lord God, who rescued Daniel from the hungry lions.”

Daniel had complete faith in God. He didn’t have a fear of the lions because he knew he had done nothing wrong. Now today, I know I have lots of fears and things that come up that I talk myself out of doing when I know I really should. Those things are like the lions, which is also satin, who is talking us out of the good things God wants us to do. He doesn’t give us any faith that we can handle the task God has laid out in front of us.

People who have faith in God know that playing it safe is most times more risky. Standing up for what you believe in can be hard, especially in religion, but in the end it means so much! People who also have faith in God know that the bigger their God is the smaller the Lions (Satin temptations) will become. There is no such thing as a risk free faith. But in this Christian faith, God promises us the security of an everlasting life; if we believe and serve our God to the fullest while we are here on Earth. So taking the all of the risks he places in front of us are totally worth it!

I encourage you to chase those lions in your life away! Think about what God has called you to do that maybe you’re not doing because of all the lions holding you back. People with real courage and faith in God chase lions, people without that courage stand back and hide while more lions build up. 2 Timothy 1:7 ~ “For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline.” The path to your greatest potential is often straight through your greatest fear!