Fear Not

Leaning Into the Unknown

Chapter 23

November 29

Deuteronomy 31: 8 The Lord Himself goes before you and will be with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.

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Preface

As today's verse states, "...goes before you 'and' will be with you...." The conjunction "and" tells us that these two things occur simultaneously. Saying that God is both in front of us "and" with us is another way of saying that God's future-now.

If we, then, align our thinking with this recurring aspect of God's character, what we don't have in our present, but envision in our future, will become our present. The future, after all, is only a new 'now'...later.

We just have to open the door for our envisioned future to enter our lives. The door's lock is fear. The lock's key is faith.

Fear is past-now, recreating the present from the building blocks of the known past. Faith is future-now, creating the present from construction material comprised of the never-before-experienced yet believed-in future.

To shift from lock to key; from closed door to open, we only have to shift from F2F.

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From day to day, at each right-this-moment, with each click of the clock we're being told that God goes ahead of us to prepare the future.

But what are we telling 'ourselves' right this second? And this one? What about this one? God's building a room into which we only have to step in order to find awaiting us there our desired victory, in whatever the situation may be. The room is the solution to our problem. Are we walking toward that room or standing frozen in fear in the problem. As the Preface shares, the future is only the now later. While we walk in the present-now, God's telling us that He's walking with us to our promised future-now victory.

To emphasize, God simultaneously:

1) walks with us,2) clears the path ahead, removing 'unnecessary' hurdles and challenges, leaving in place only those hardships that will specifically address and remove our self-imposed fear-based limitations, and3) stacks the deck at the end of that particular path in our favor.

He's assured our success, which awaits us on the other side of the last challenging step we take toward a specific goal. Do we believe what He says? Or do we give the greater weight to the perspective of the world? Fear says it can't work out. It's impossible.

Faith says, though I don't know how; I can't see how, it is going to work out, because it's promised that it already has worked out. Knowing it's going to work out, we take a step forward. We lean into the unknown. We take responsibility for the victory we know is ours. We put in the extra time, take care to mind the details. We do our part. We plant the seeds of action, knowing God guarantees the harvest. God and us do this together. "Teamwork makes the dream work."Faith in action guarantees our aimed-for reward. The world will try to say that nothing is guaranteed, because those of the world have more fear than faith. And this is the type of thing that fear says.

Fear weighs heavy on their spirit, severely 'de-pressing' their psychological/emotional output, hindering their ability to generate the energy to even try. And in the rare moments when they do try, they insist on going at it alone, relying on their own limited energy resources. This makes those of the world more susceptible to giving up, tapping out, lacking the necessary perseverance to see things through.

Consequently, they never realize the reward otherwise promised to them. If God showed up in this moment and with booming voice stated definitively, "Any one thing you choose to pursue I guarantee will succeed," what would that one thing be? Though God doesn't need booming voice--the greater the power of the messenger the softer the whisper--His Word, like the infinite surrounding earthly and heavenly beauties, is created by Him anew day to day, moment to moment, for us.

Through both Word and universe, we are being continuously told, "Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged." Why? Because "I will never leave you nor forsake you." God tells us this every morning we wake up, through the messenger of Dawn's blush, and every evening we lay down to go to sleep, beneath the messenger of stars blanketing us. And we're told this during each tick of the clock in between morning and night through every detail screaming out at those of us who's eyes and ears are open that our success has already been guaranteed. So, at any time, during any 'now,' when we encounter any False Evidence Appearing Real (FEAR), we counter argue and overcome this fear with Full Assurance in Trusting Him (FAITH), seizing onto the real evidence of God's daily reminders and promises. In this way, as Moses shared this message with Joshua in front of all of God's people, our living example--the example of how we live our lives--shares the message with the whole world, leading them out of the dark wilderness of fear and failure into the bright promise land of faith and success.
And this can be achieved in each of the primary areas of our lives: in our relationships, our career, our financial wellbeing, our health & fitness, our spiritual growth and in our outreach work.