How Can We Live Unafraid?

With the latest terrorism in Paris, I am again reminded of the world gone crazy. More than 120 people dead in multiple Parisian attacks. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility. The attackers themselves are dead. They blew themselves up. The evil of this world is not new, but how can we live unafraid?

Reading Bible prophecy about wicked attacking

Ezekiel 38 10-11

¹⁰ ‘“This is what the Sovereign Lord says: on that day thoughts will come into your mind and you will devise an evil scheme. ¹¹ You will say, ‘I will invade a land of unwalled villages; I will attack a peaceful and unsuspecting people – all of them living without walls and without gates and bars.”

Is this the terrorism we see today? I don’t know. But I do know that the Bible says to expect this level of escalating evil. It is evil that the world has seen in various eras and epochs since time immemorial.

What should our response be? I think it should be two-fold:

1. We need to be ready. Life is uncertain whether we live in Paris or  Cape Town, in Sydney or Scotland. Our lives are in God’s hands. We are just a breath away between the life we live now and the life that is yet to come.
2. I don’t believe God wants us to live afraid. God speaks down through the centuries reiterating His presence with us, reassuring us that He will strengthen us and hold us up. Isaiah 41:10

So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

The reason why we do not need to fear is because this life is not all there is. There is more. To live unafraid we have to trust in Someone bigger. We sit poised in a moment in time –  2015, while ahead lies another 10 trillion overcountable years – which each of us will be part of. God is the Architect of of the Universe and the Manager of all time.

When we believe in God, through His Son Jesus Christ – when we die, we just move from this world to the next. He will be there.

I know that the ‘do not fear’ is one of the hardest commands to try and embrace. We are built for fight or flight. We need to pray and ask God to continually fill us with His Holy Spirit, so when the time comes for us to die, we die with His strength, aware of His strong right hand holding us up.

We acknowledge our fragility. We commit to God our vulnerability. We humble ourselves.

We lay down our lives for the glory of God and we do the best that we can.

Bill Drake puts it like this (the song is Totally Abandoned)

“You are my Resurrection, You are my life, Jesus, Here is my sacrifice . . .

I am totally abandoned, wrecked at Your feet

I am smitten by forgiveness

Broken and complete

Help me die to my ambitions and my self erected pride

Help me live out on this altar

’till in You I’m crucified.”

Our lives are totally in God’s hands. There is no other way.

God bless you.

In His Grip,

Helga xx