In chapter four of “Suffering” Paul Tripp addresses the issue of fear. In our seasons of suffering fear grows large as God grows smaller.
When fear rules your heart, you don’t see or think about life accurately. You function with distorted vision that causes you to make wrong conclusions and bad decisions. And because fear distorts your vision, you trouble your own trouble. In counseling I have warned people over and over again that things were not as bad as they could be and that they could make them worse by responding to their trouble in the wrong way. So you have to fight to see life with the eyes of faith and not through the lens of fear.
We cannot allow fear to be the lens through which we view life and make decisions. In seasons of suffering we must pray along with the disciples, “Lord, increase our faith!” When I was in the emergency room, they wanted to try and re-locate the bones in my feet so they gave me a cocktail of drugs that seemed to release from reality. I could hear voices. I could feel the doctors pulling on my leg. At times my eyes would slightly open and I could see blobs moving about the room. I remember distinctly hearing the word “surgery”. I have to admit in that moment I was afraid.
Throughout the Bible there is an often repeated phrase: “The Lord was with him”. For instance in Joseph’s distress “the Lord was with him.” In that moment of disassociation in the ER the Lord was with me. The Holy Spirit began to flood my mind with Scripture and truth. Whether I was speaking out-loud or in my head (the nurses and doctors only know) I began to quote Scripture.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, do not lean to your own understanding.” (Proverbs 3:5)
“He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and buckler. You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness, nor the destruction that wastes at noonday.” (Psalm 91:4-6)
When our fears begin to distort our faith, we need a greater fear, a fear that is the beginning of all wisdom – the Fear of the Lord. We must let God’s word – His truth – shape the way we are viewing life’s circumstances.