Afraid of not being afraid

‘Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will now restore the fortunes of Jacob and will have compassion on all the people of Israel, and I will be zealous for my holy name. They will forget their shame and all the unfaithfulness they showed towards me when they lived in safety in their land with no one to make them afraid.'

Ezekiel 39.25-26

The everyday experience of fear is a horrible thing. When you are afraid of something it preoccupies your thoughts - it becomes a squatter in your mind - refusing to leave. It may be to do with a work situation, a relationship tension, a health worry, a reputational threat, a financial loss.

But these verses remind us that there is something worse than fear - not being afraid. God had blessed his people with peace, but in their foolishness they had come to think that they didn't need God anymore, because things were all right. Did they not realise that their experience of peace was a minute, by minute blessing of the Lord. And so they turned away from the one who was their peace. Did they reject him outright? No. More dangerously they simply demoted him. No longer their saviour, he was a saviour; no longer their provider, he was one of a network of service providers.

The message of Ezekiel is that we should not be afraid of things that would make us afraid. God intends that through the experience of weakness, when the future no longer seems clear, we would find the real peace of running to him. So if you are in a chaotic situation, or the future seems hopeless, be encouraged, you are on the cusp of finding true peace in the arms of the Almighty and Living God.

If though everything is good and the future seems bright...

Beware!