ODB: Where Our Fears Live
February 11, 2014
READ: 1 Kings 17:17-24
Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in You. —Psalm 56:3
Twelve years into our marriage, my wife and I were discouraged by the emotional roller-coaster of hopes raised and dashed in attempting to have children. A friend tried to “explain” God’s thinking. “Maybe God knows you’d be a bad father,” he said. He knew that my mother had struggled with a terrible temper.
Then, Christmas 1988, we learned we were expecting our first child! But now I had this nagging fear of failure.
The following August, Kathryn joined our family. As nurses and doctors tended to my wife, Kathryn cried on the warming tray. I offered my hand to comfort her, and her tiny fingers wrapped around my finger. In that instant, the Holy Spirit swept through me, assuring me of what I had only recently doubted—that I would show love to this little one!
The widow of Zarephath also had doubts. Her son had been struck with a lethal illness. In her despair she cried out, “Have you come to me to bring my sin to remembrance, and to kill my son?” (1 Kings 17:18). But God had other plans!
We serve a God who is mightier than the struggles we inherit and who is full of the desire to forgive, love, and heal the brokenness that rises up between us and Him. God is present in the places where our fears live.
— Randy Kilgore
moments and in our greatest fears. Teach us to
receive Your love in a way that enables us to show
it to others, especially those closest to us.
Love swims against the current of life’s false fears.
Source: Our Daily Bread
