Fear Not?

“He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you

will find refuge. . . . You will not fear the terror of night, nor the

arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness,

nor the plague that destroys at midday” Psalm 91:4-6.

 

Oh, but I did fear the terror of night.

It was wartime in Holland, and our family was hiding someone the

Germans were hunting – a Dutch police officer who secretly had been

in charge of Allied weapon drops. A knocking on the windows in the dead

of night would stop my heart. But terror is not limited to the night.

 

The day came when Germans went from house to house.

We watched them come, my hero and I. A boy of ten, I shook with terror when I saw this commander in underground resistance pull his gun.

Suddenly we heard shouts and shots, and we saw the hired man led away. They thought they had their man; no one searched our house that day.

But my heart still palpitates when I think of what could have happened (and often did): my hero killed, Germans too, consequently Dad, and the farm burned down to the ground.

 

Not fear the flying arrows, not fear the stalking pestilence? For years those

biblical promises sounded empty to me. Not fear the evils of a Holocaust, starvation,

epidemics, accidents that can take the life of an only child, an incurable

cancer diagnosis, a future with Alzheimer’s?

God couldn’t be serious, I thought.

For we all know, don’t we, that there’s no horror from which we are exempt?

 

But there is.

I had not understood what God was really saying.

I had not understood how Psalm 118 could confidently exclaim: “The Lord is with

me; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?”

I knew and know they can do unspeakably horrible things.

They can take young women and rape them in the name of their god.

They can unleash Sarin, the invisible poison that makes one choke to death within minutes.

They can brutalize; they can maim; they can burn; they can hang; they can

starve; they can destroy everything that was ever held dear in a human heart.

Refuge

So what had I not understood?

God did not say we would never go through valleys of death.

He did not say that we wouldn’t have enemies who would be out to kill us, that we

would not suffer fires and droughts and floods and pestilence and bullets

and strokes and heart attacks and cancer and dementia.

He did say that he would always be with us.

And I began to understand that the promise refers to who God is and not to who I am – vulnerable and afraid.

He knows I am, and that’s why he keeps telling me who he is: one whom I

can cling to like a scared child clings to his daddy when disaster strikes.

Like David clung when he was afraid: “The Lord is with me. . . . When I am afraid,

I will trust in you . . . in you my soul takes refuge.”

 

Then Matthew enlarges my understanding when he reminds me of the words

of our Lord to his disciples, and to all of us: “Don’t be afraid of those who want

to kill your body; they cannot touch your soul.”

And I say, Yes, Lord, let me remember that the God who made me, the God who loves me, is the God who saves me. He is the Lord who places his right hand on me and says: “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One.”

That’s who God is.

But he knows I am one of those with little faith who will still be afraid.

Then I will cling to his promise: “I am with you.”

Yes, he will be with me, as he was with Joseph, David, Stephen, Paul, Bonhoeffer,

Corrie ten Boom and with all who have faith that no evil can touch

the soul that is covered with his feathers, that is sheltered under his wings.

 

And that surely will dissolve my fear – and yours.