How to Overcome Fear
November 13, 2008

It's obvious that the current financial crisis isn't a tiny speed-bump that the economy will get past without slowing down. This baby threatens to bring everything to a dangerous halt. As I've traveled around the country in the last month, I've met some men who have been laid off. Others fear they will be. A glance at the evening news makes it clear that even some of the big-time money men are nervous. And so am I. Maybe you are too.

It seems fearing an uncertain future is something that has bitten even the godliest of men. Repeatedly God has attempted to calm those fears with a promise of his presence. He did that with Joshua, and Moses, and well, the list goes on and on and it includes you and me. In the face of a foggy future we must remember that God is with us. How do we do that? Astrophysicist Dr. Hugh Ross helps. He suggests we imagine that the two-dimensional image on a television screen actually consists of a living two dimensional world. If you placed your fingertip on the screen, what would the people in the two-dimensional world see? Your fingertip would be a flat, round, two-dimensional image that would look like a dot. No one in that world would be able to see or comprehend depth any more than a blind person could comprehend color.

If you entered that two-dimensional world and told the people about the three-dimensional world outside of their own, some would believe. But nobody would possess depth perception. They would have to take the existence of such a world by faith.

Similarly, God doesn't exist just on the other side of the galaxy. He is with us. On occasions he has made himself known through the appearance of angels, a message to the prophets, or, in the case of Moses, a burning bush. His greatest manifestation occurred when he actually became a man, Jesus Christ. John said he and others saw Jesus with their eyes and touched him with their hands (1 John 1:3).

The challenge we face is believing in the presence of a God we can't see or touch. Jesus understood the difficulty of such faith. After the resurrection he told Thomas, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed" (John 20:29).

Did you catch that last phrase? God's blessing is ours if we'll choose to believe in the One we can't see. How do we do that? Throughout each day take a moment and reflect on the fact that God is in you and with you. Thank him for his presence. Ask him for the grace you need to continue to trust in him even when you don't sense his presence. But take another step...determine to live each moment with a conscious awareness of God's presence. That, my friend, will change the way you think, act, speak, and view the future.