Fear Or Faith? Hope Or Despair?

What does your year ahead look like?

Is it a year full of faith and hope? Or is it a year full of fear and despair?

I think we would all like to say that it is a year full of faith and hope, but the reality of life is that for many people it is just another year of fear and despair ...

Because we live in a world full of fears:

• Fear of this new variant of the COVID-19 virus

• Fear that like many other people we know may die of this virus within 12 hours

• fear of the future, whether we will survive financially, still have a job with all the retrenchments going on - restrictions limiting the number of clients you have

• fear of the unknown, whether this vaccine against COVID-19 will change your DNA as many people claim, and that you will then go to hell (yes, there are such videos in circulation...)

• fear of suffering, of cancer, of a long sickbed that robs you of your human dignity

• fear of crime becoming increasingly violent and people being shot dead just for a cellphone, which makes you too scared to go to sleep, too scared to go to a mall

• fear of failure, that you are not good enough, fear of rejection, fear of people planning your downfall, fear of racism at work that is now unfairly harming you, and many other fears.

Fear is the belief that there is something “out there” that is going to get you and that you have no control over it, that you can do nothing to stop the inevitable storm that is going to destroy you.

These fears often leave you in a very bad place in your life, because they plunge you into this dark hole of depression, anxiety and stress ...

David describes something of this fear in Psalm 55:3-5 “I am terrified by the threats of my enemies, crushed by the oppression of the wicked. They bring trouble on me; they are angry with me and hate me. I am terrified, and the terrors of death crush me. I am gripped by fear and trembling; I am overcome with horror.” (Do you recognize it ...?)

FEAR IS NOT FROM GOD

The irony is that fear - to be afraid - did not come into Adam en Eve’s lives as part of human existence in paradise before sin. It was not part of man's vocabulary or experience.

For fear does not come from God - 2 Timothy 1:7 says, "God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind."

Fear is the work of satan, fear is something caused by satan through the lies he plants in people's heads - and what they then believe.

After the fall - Adam and Eve hid from God (as if one could ever do that – see Psalm 139). God calls to Adam and asks him: Where are you? (Genesis 3:9). God is not playing hide and seek here - He knew exactly what they were trying to hide.

What God is asking: Where are you at this point in your life? Why are you here where you are now? How did it happen that you got scared? (Genesis 3:10 And the man answered, "I heard thee walk in the garden, and I was afraid ...") It was never part of his life, but now fear has overtaken him ...

Adam blames Eve, and Eve blames the serpent ("The serpent deceived me, and I ate." - Genesis 3:13)

Eve hits the nail on the head: I lent my ears to satan and fell for his lies. Now I find myself in a place in my life where I am filled with fear ...

ELIJAH IN THE CROSSFIRE

This is the same question God asks Elijah after dealing with Baal prophets:

1 Kings 19:2,9 - Now Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, “May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them.” Elijah was afraid and ran for his life.

...he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God. There he went into a cave and spent the night. The Lord appears to Elijah and the word of the Lord came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

God asks Eliah: What happened that you are now here at this time in your life, full of fear and despair instead of faith and hope?

See, Elijah fell into the same trap as Adam and Eve. He lent his ears to satan who said to him: Elijah, you know Jezebel - nothing and no one escapes her revenge – you had your chips, and even God will not be able to save you from her clutches ...