Does fear ever grip you?

"Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in You.

In God I will praise His word,

In God I have put my trust;

I will not fear.

What can flesh do to me?"

(Psalms 56:3,4)

Does anyone besides me ever allow the deep pit of fear to consume them?

Literally,  allow it to take over any conscious and rational thought process that is trying to peek through?

And then when any resemblence of peace starts to settle in, that wave of undeniable, heart-stopping, fearfulness just swoops right in and just single-handedly knocks peace right off of its proverbial feet.

How can a Christian woman who is firmly grounded in her faith allow this to happen?

How can a woman who knows that her God is sovereign and powerful let an emotion like that grab hold and threaten her like that?

How in the world could I let myself get wrapped up in the tight fist of fear when I know clearly that the Word of God tells me not to fear?

"For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind."

(2 Timothy 1:7)

Simply put? I let my guard down and allowed my weaknesses to gain footing.

The devil knows just what our weakest traits are and he knows our areas where we are most vulnerable. And you better believe that the devil can and will use that to his greatest advantage every single time we give him the opportunity to do so.

All too often, we just leave ourselves wide open for him to attack.

I don't deal with this type of fear very often. Praise God for that. But there is one particuliar thing that I fear in a BIG way and satan loves nothing better than to torment me with the "what-if's" of it. Most of the time, I stay strong and am able to confront the fear and the lies that the devil tries to convince me are truth. I am able to confront and dismiss them only with the help of my precious Lord and Savior.

For whatever reason, this past week the devil was able (if only for a short period) to cause me a few days of misery as I allowed this unsubstantiated fear to wreak havoc on my spirit!  It literally was driving me a little crazy as I just allowed it to begin to take control of my every thought! How absurd is that? How utterly ridiculous was that on my part?

And all this took place after I had such a sweet time of communion with Jesus on Tuesday! The devil knew that I had met with Him in a mighty way and he just couldn't stand it.

Thank goodness, as I kept in the Word, the Lord was able to cut the old lying devil off at the pass. As I remained solidly in the scriptures and literally scoured every devotion book I own, I found peace everywhere I looked. I found Him in each place that my frenzy took me. God was busy calming my nerves and settling my fear.

One thing I learned from this. We have got to keep ourselves grounded deeply in the Word. We have got to keep ourselves imbedded in the scriptures at all times!

We need to KNOW His Word and we need to KNOW the Truth of His Word.

When we feel things like fear, that we know without a shadow of a doubt are NOT from God, we need to immediately rebuke it and cast it out. We need to replace that thought with a TRUTH from His Word, and stand firm on it. We need to stand on the promises of His Word. We need to quote the Truth of  His Word over and over to ourselves until it just soaks in our spirit. 

I am so thankful that God allowed me to emerge from this unscathed. He showed me mercy. He showed me grace. He lovingly guided me to His Word and led me to the fountain of Truth. I drank in that Truth deeply and let is satiate that thirst within me.  As it settled and calmed my spirit, I was able to see Him more clearly. Once again, He met me there in my need.

Praise you, Jesus, for your power and your might. Praise you for the Truth of Your Word. Praise you for loving and giving. You are my peace. I love you with all of my heart.

In the tight fist of Him,

Beth