Psalm Twenty-Seven: Fear and Light

"The Lord is my light and my salvation- whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life- of whom shall I be afraid?  
When evil men advance against me to devour my flesh, 
when my enemies and my foes attack me, they will stumble and fall, 
Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear, 
though war break out against me, 
even then will I be confident." v. 1-3


...Just go and break out your Bible and read the entire chapter.  It is 14 verses of awesomeness.  You will need a highlighter or a pen to underline.  You might just want to underline all of it.  It will be well worth your while- I promise.

There have been two times in my life where I can remember being truly afraid.  (OK- 3 if you count the time I made a wrong turn coming home from Connecticut and drove through NEW YORK CITY. I can't talk about that one yet.  When I do, I relive it, and my palms get all clammy.)  Consequently, during both of those scary times I had one of my dear friends beside me.

This is Carissa. Carissa was the first person I met at college.  We were both art majors and clicked instantly.  That's not a difficult thing for Carissa to do with most people.  I know it's cliché to say, but she's one of those people who truly lights up a room when she walks into it.  She can have a conversation with anyone- and often does- on trains, subways, people working a cash register, etc.,  and more often than not she leaves a conversation having put a smile on the other person's face (that is, if she's not telling that person what an idiot they are, which she also can do with ease and gusto.)
She is the bravest and most independent person I know.  She lives and works in New York City and knows all of the subway trains to get from place to place.  That, to me, is impressive.  It figures that when I look back on the two most fearful times on my life, God would put the bravest person I know next to me.  Funny.

---Number One---
My sophomore year, a few college friends and I went for a little weekend jaunt to Carissa's hometown of Canandaigua, NY, about an hour and a half away from school.  We had fun together and laughed a lot, as we always did.  We made a trip to Wegman's (OH, I MISS YOU, WEGMAN'S) and saw all the places where Carissa went to school and church.  I drove.  I will be the first to tell you that when given the choice to either be the driver or the passenger, I will pick passenger every time.  I don't like driving, nonetheless driving in the arctic tundra that is Western New York.  On our way back to school from our adventure, what started out as a beautiful dusting of swirling, dancing snow on the highway quickly turned into a completely disastrous blustery white-out.  I could barely make out a foot of pavement in front of the car.  We knew that it was too late to turn back; it was only going to get worse throughout the day.  So we trudged along at a snail's pace.  Every so often we could make out a car or two that had skid across the road and was tail-end up in a ditch.  I truly feared for my life.  I was clutching the steering wheel white-knuckled.  Carissa sat in the passenger seat next to me and kept reassuring me that I was doing a great job and we would get back safely.

I kept imagining all the things I wouldn't get to do if I died in a snow storm.  No more painting.  No wedding.  No babies.  It's amazing how fear can disable right-thinking.  It paralyzes me.       

We all  prayed together, and the verse that kept repeating itself over and over in my mind was Psalm 27.  

"The Lord is my light and my salvation- whom shall I fear?

The Lord is the stronghold of my life- of whom shall I be afraid?"

  

There's nothing like wisdom from Scripture that can bring light into the darkest parts of my mind.  It reveals the true nature of my faith in God and puts in perspective how much I should be trusting Him with my future.  

We did end up making it back to school safely, by the way.

---Number Two---
Carissa and I went to Italy for three weeks along with our art department.  We visited the three art meccas- Venice, Rome, and Florence.  There were about thirty of us altogether in the group, including our four professors.  While we were in Florence, we stayed in a one-star hotel- basically a hostel with five or so beds in a room and bathrooms for everyone to share in the hallway.  It was only our group that was staying on the third floor, so no one bothered to lock their rooms.  It was a hassle.  If anyone woke up during the night to use the bathroom, someone would have to stay awake to unlock and re-lock the door with a key.  I am a super light sleeper.  It would have made for a very long night.
On the second morning in Florence, I awoke to panic-striken people running up and down the hallway.  "Check your wallets!  Check your money!" I kept hearing.

I rubbed my eyes, and looked over at my nightstand that Carissa and I shared, on which I carefully placed my money belt on the night before. The money belt had been hap-hazardly strewn on the floor, my passport and credit card spilled out.  Someone had broken into our room, used sleeping gas to make sure we remained asleep, and taken all of our cash.  Four rooms were broken into that night, with a total of $1200 stolen.

 It was hard to fall asleep the next night.  I was afraid.  I imagined what may have happened if I had woken up and the robber was inches away from me.  What if they came back?  We locked our door the next night and every night after that.  My moneybelt was safely tucked inside my pillow case.  I knew the chances of it happening again two nights a row were slim.  But still, I was truly fearful.

Again, God brought this same scripture to mind.

"The Lord is my light and my salvation- whom shall I fear?

The Lord is the stronghold of my life- of whom shall I be afraid?  

When evil men advance against me to devour my flesh, 

when my enemies and my foes attack me, they will stumble and fall, 

Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear, 

though war break out against me, 

even then will I be confident."

I remember sitting in a train next to Carissa saying this verse out loud to each other, memorizing it, soaking in all the truth, bathing the dark corners of our minds with light from God's word.  

It was so much easier to sleep after that.

When I think of those two instances, they both have something in common.  My imagination.  My imagination can take me anywhere, and when I let my mind taste and then bite and then devour deception and lies, I convince myself that my God is too small to handle my circumstances.  Fear is the result.  Fear takes my mind to the "could-be's" and "what-if's" and I start to practice feeling what I would feel in those circumstances.  Maybe it's a way of guarding my heart- so if those things do happen, those feelings won't be unfamiliar in that moment.  I'll be prepared.  

But one thing is wrong with that.  In my imagining those circumstances, God is absent.  His presence is not there.  It is complete darkness.  I fail to recognize that God will be beside me in my moment of need- guiding, reassuring, strengthening, surrounding me with His children (people like Carissa) to be a voice of reason and light and life and truth from God's Word.      

Fear is a waste of my imagination.    

I'm not talking about using common sense and imagining the worst and being prepared.  I'm talking about fear that cripples my faith into thinking I am more alone than I really am.

What, then, am I encouraged to think about?  This is David's solution: Before an army overtakes him and war is all around him, he makes the commitment to be confident in his God.

"One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.  For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle and set me high upon a rock." v. 4-5


I am so thankful for the truth of these verses.  On days when I let my mind wander to dark places filled with fear for myself and for my family, I can cling to this truth and know that God will not abandon me in the dark.  He is my light and my salvation.  Truth dispels darkness.