Fear not!

A lot of worries can overcome us as writers. Will anyone want or care to read our stuff? Will it be good? Why should you care about your story? How can you afford to publish it, if you are self-publishing? How do you market it? Even though it may be easy to let anxiety over various problems swallow you whole, you don’t have to succumb to it.

I heard this twice within the past couple days: in about the same words, worry is when you look at your circumstances; trust is when you look at God. That’s not to say that you forget about the world and everything physically real and just think of “heavenly” matters. Rather, just like Peter in the storm as he walked on the water towards Jesus (Matthew 14:22-33), you stand when you focus on Him, making Him your life source, and you sink when you look at the storm around you.

Jesus is our life, if we trust Him to have saved and forgiven us from our sin. We do not have to let the worries of this world (and there are so many!) control us anymore. People can think of countless things to fear, and according to David in Psalm 34, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous.” If you know Jesus, you will get to enjoy getting a lot of trouble to wade through.

In the context of Psalm 34, David had just defeated the giant Goliath with a mere slingshot through faith. Goliath was defying the God of Israel; David responded in holy indignation. Right afterwards, David was fleeing from Saul, whose jealousy spurred him to a murderous heart. He took his enemy Goliath’s sword and hid mid the Philistines in his overwhelming fear. Yet, the Philistines recognized him and pointed him out, “Isn’t this the king of Israel?” David had nowhere to go. It was when he cried out to the LORD that his mindset changed, and God gave him an idea of how to get out of Philistine land: pretend to be mad before the king.

“The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear Him, and rescues them.” (Psalm 34: 7).

Take courage, and look at God’s love for you which casts out all fear.