Weekend Words

What Time I Am Afraid - Psalm 56

Matthan is four years old, and his world is widening rapidly.  He has so many questions and so many fears.

The things he's afraid of don't always make sense to me.  A small plastic beaver with its mouth open, showing long teeth ready to gnaw off trees, instils a great fear in him.  So he throws the beaver into a drawer and slams it shut.  But even with the beaver out of sight,  Matthan is worried.

"I can hear him racketing around in there Mum," he tells me.  And even when I assure him I can't and that he's perfectly safe where a plastic toy animal is concerned, he's not so sure.

I have fears too, and they seem more reasonable than Matthan's.  I worry about war, persecution, insecticides, and poverty, to name a few.  I worry even more about the kind of world in which my children are growing up, about the rampant evil that seems to be gaining an upper hand everywhere.

Perhaps my fears make more sense to God than Matthan's do to me.  Or perhaps they do not.  After all, God has promised to take care of those who trust in his name and to keep us in the shelter of his hand.  So he didn't promise me an easy way with no concerns, but he did promise to walk it with me.  He expects me to trust that he knows what is going on, that he sees the big picture, even when I don't.

Sometimes I can explain away Matthan's fears.  When he understands that the things he's worried about are normal or are nothing to fear, he believes me.  The look of concern fades from his face.  He might still not be able to see his worries as I see them, but he trusts me.

I say I trust God.  Bad things do happen, but I say I believe God knows what he's doing and that he is in control.  So if I say I trust him, I should let my worries fade, my anxieties be subdued.  I don't always know what's going on.  But God does.  I can learn to say with the psalmist in verse 3 of today's scripture reading, "What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee."

(from Water My Soul - Darla Weaver)