We all have times when we are afraid. Years ago someone told me the antidote to fear is prayer. Certainly that has been proved true in my life time and time again. By nature, I admit I am a worrier. It seems to come naturally to me – the instinctive reaction.
Therefore it takes a concerted effort to train myself not to worry but to hand the situation to God in prayer. Even then, there is always the temptation to take it back again. I’ve needed to learn to leave it with Him to work out and every time I am tempted to worry, to go back to prayer or to reading His Word.
It is interesting to see how often God’s Word contains exactly the answer we need at exactly the right time. Not from playing bible roulette, as I call it, which means opening the bible at random and plucking a verse out of context but simply because God already knows our future and what will happen so His plan and His Word is already in place to met our need and can come simply through the planned bible reading for the day.
If you don’t have a planned bible reading pattern, let me suggest it is a good idea. There are plenty of resources available. One I mostly use is one year bible online. I don’t use the commentary but simply read the bible passages and let God speak to me from them. I usually read one or two of the passages not all four.
As Psalm 37, one of my favorite psalms says, ‘the salvation of the righteous is from the Lord. He is their strength in times of trouble. And the Lord helps them and delivers them. He delivers them from the wicked and saves them, because they take refuge in Him, Psalm 37:39-40.
So often we see the psalmists knew what to do with their fears and worry. In times of crisis it has been prayer and bible reading that has calmed my fears and stopped the worrying. A thought that just occurred to me is, maybe God made me the way I am- a worrier so I would spend more time in prayer. Maybe that’s what He wants to do with you do, to have you turn to Him in prayer. If you have had a similar experience, I’d love to hear about it.
Bible passages from the New American Standard Version
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