Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Where Do You Turn In Fear? | The Writings | Psalm 57

Episode Date: May 16, 2024

How do you react when you're faced with fear? Do you try to control the situation yourself? Do you just give up? In today's episode, Patrick turns to Psalm 57 as an example of how to trust God when you're afraid. Read the Bible with us in 2024! This year, we’re tackling a group of Old Testament books traditionally known as “The Writings”— Psalms, Chronicles, Proverbs, Daniel, Ruth and more! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Psalm 57

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. What can give you peace when you're afraid? A few months ago, I took my daughter to a climbing gym, and after she climbed maybe two feet up into the air, she started to scream. And she told me that she was going to fall and she was going to break a bone. She had broken an arm recently, and so I get why she was afraid. And so I calmly moved towards her and put my hand on her shoulders, and I said, hey, hey, I'm right here.

I'll catch you. You have nothing to fear. Now, to be totally honest, these kinds of tricks don't always work, but in that case, it did. She immediately became more relaxed. She looked back at me, and she kept on climbing. And in that moment, I couldn't help but reflect on what I do when I'm afraid. Of course, sometimes I'm in an equally comical situation, you know, where if I could just see the bigger picture, I'd realize that I'm screaming about falling to death from two feet above the ground, but that's not always the case. Sometimes me, you, we are in real danger or just a really hard situation, and we're right to be afraid. Before David was king, he spent months and months on the run from King Saul. And Saul wanted to kill him, basically just out of jealousy. David had nothing

to hurt Saul. In fact, David served Saul as a musician. He served him as a warrior and eventually as a general and the leader. But that was the problem. David's competency drew out Saul's insecurity. So as a result, Saul chased him into the Judean wilderness. And if you're from America, you might think about wilderness as a forest. But depending on where you're from, maybe you see that differently. And in that place, a wilderness is a kind of mountainous desert. I've been there before. It's incredibly dry. There's hardly any water, any plants. It's a very hard place to live. It's full of rolling hills, but they're all deserty and there's caves. And it's not a fun place to go. But David was forced to go living caves like an animal. And so if you're a rolling hills, but so if you

David was afraid for his life. It wasn't because he couldn't see the bigger picture. He really was at risk. But the question today isn't whether you've made a proper risk assessment. Chances are you haven't. We all kind of mess up our risk assessments. Of course, that's a good question to ask yourself. Am I assessing the risk properly? But the main question today is, what do you do when you're afraid? Many of us turn inward. We grew up with the world telling us to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps and solve our own problems. And so we start making our plans and maneuvering to avoid what scares us. We try to control and scheme our way through our fear. So if we're sick, for example, we try to be more expert than the doctors. We try to work around

their scheduling systems and make sure we're getting the best and we ask a bazillion questions because the more we know, the more we think we can control the situation. If you're in financial straits and you're like this, well then you'll just work extra hours. You'll hustle for more clients. You'll manipulate whoever you need to manipulate to get out what you need to get out. And the same goes for us when we're afraid for a relationship or our reputation. We just work harder to try to solve the problem. But here's the truth, you're not in control. You can scheme and plan and work all you want, and the cancer still has more power than you. The debt still gets the final say. The relational stress might have the final.

word. This is why turning to ourselves, when we're afraid, causes us so much stress. You see, if I have to fix it, then I'm stressed about fixing it. And if I can't fix it, then it's also my fault because I was the one who was supposed to fix it. And so in the end, I end up feeling terrible and stressed, both about myself and the situation. It's a little like my daughter on that wall, turning around and yelling at me when I offered to help her, Dad, I've got this. I can fix this. I'm going to make myself not afraid anymore by trying really hard. But you know how that would go. The more she tried to fix it, the more afraid she would get until she's on the wall yelling at me, yelling at everyone, angry at everything, angry at herself because she can't fix it, but I'm right there trying to fix it for her.

The common alternative to this that a lot of people fall into is becoming a helpless puddle. You just do nothing. You give up. You give in. I've been there before. You just accept what's scaring you as inevitable. It will take your life. It will take your savings. It will take the relationship. But here's the funny thing about those of us who turned into puddles in these moments. We're secretly self-reliant. You see, just like the person who thinks that they need to fix the problem themselves, well, you think the same thing. It's just the person who's out there trying to fix it thinks that they can fix the problem and you've come to the conclusion that you can't fix the problem. It begs a question, is there a different solution than being self-reliant?

Confidently self-reliant? I can fix this. I can do this or insecurely self-reliant. I have to fix this. but I can't do it. David, who's on the run from Saul, shows us that the answer is yes, there is an alternative. You turn to your heavenly father and trust him. Psalm 571, be merciful to me, oh God, be merciful to me, for in you, my soul takes refuge. In the shadow of your wings, I will take refuge till the storms of destruction pass by. I cry out to God most high, to God who fulfills his purpose for me. He will say, send from heaven and save me. He will put to shame those who trample on me. God will send out his steadfast love and his faithfulness. Do you notice what's happening here? David is alternating between

fear and trust. He expresses his fear one verse and then he turns around and expresses his trust in God and the next. He's a lot like my daughter on the wall. He's saying, I'm afraid I may fall, father. Will you help me? And then he says this, I sense you father and I know that you'll help me. the fear, and then he speaks his trust in God. It's fear into trust, into fear, into trust. But notice who he isn't relying on here himself. He knows he can't get himself out of this, and he isn't necessarily trying. David continues, my soul is in the midst of lions. I lie down amid fiery beasts, the children of man whose teeth are spears and eras, whose tongues are sharp swords. So there you have it. He is speaking his fear. He's naming it, but then check what he does next. He's going to trust God.

exalted, O God, above the heavens. Let your glory be above all the earth. Then back to the fear, they set a net for my steps. My soul was bowed down. They dug a pit in my way, but they have fallen into it themselves. So you're hearing the trust. My heart is steadfast, oh God, my heart is steadfast. I will sing and make melody. Awake my glory. Awake, O harp and lyre. I will awake the dawn. I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples. I will sing praise to you among the nations for your steadfast love is great to the heavens. Your faithfulness to the clouds. Be exalted, O God. Above the heavens, let your glory be over all the earth. Fear into trust, into fear, into trust. God isn't asking you to deny your fears. It's not asking you to fix your fears.

You don't need to go into overdrive and try to end your fear, and you certainly shouldn't just give up in response to your fear. Why? Because your fear. goes into trust. God is opening his arms to you when you're afraid. Or maybe a better image of that is a father, putting his hands on his child's shoulders while she's afraid on a rock wall and saying, I know you're afraid, but I'm with you. Fear not my child.