What Keeps You Up At Night?

What keeps you up at night? As a kid there where many different fears that kept us up at night. Those strange noises we herd, that scary movie that we watched, our active imagination, just to name a few. Many if not most of the fears I had as a child have long since faded. But as adults we have replaced them with some new fears.

Fear still affects us today. It erodes our faith. It steals our freedom. It runs away with our hope. Fear makes us obsess about ourselves and causes us to focus on our limitation. Fear keeps us from really being able to connect to other people. Fear keeps us from taking risk. Fear keeps us from trusting God. Fear keeps us from living in this moment. Fear is always projecting our life into the future and we miss the moment we are living in. It causes us to obsess over ourselves and our limitations instead of seeing all the possibilities available. Fear is disorienting. It can cause us to fight nonexistent enemies. It can cause us to focus on the wrong things.

Jesus knew fear would be deadly on our lives. While Jesus was on earth he gave us around 125 different commands. Out of those 125 commands, twenty-one of them dealt with the topic of fear. Twenty-one different times Jesus said something like…Have courage, don’t be afraid, or take heart. Fifteen of those twenty-one times Jesus said “Do not be afraid.” In fact the next command that was used most frequently was only used 8 times. It was that we are to love God and love your neighbor. That should help us understand that Jesus took our fears very seriously. He knew that this is something we would all struggle with. So he spent a lot of time talking about it.

Psalm 121:1-3 says, “I look up to the mountains—does my help come from there?
My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth! He will not let you stumble; the one who watches over you will not slumber.”

In the fear you are facing realize you are not alone. Maybe today you just need to simply be reminded of Psalm 32:7 – “You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance.”

God says I am your hiding place. Hide here with me because I am going to surrounded you. Surround you with my salvation. Surround you with my love. Surround you with my Grace.

Today in your fear just draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Find hope in know you are not alone.