Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Day 17 - What If?


Today's Scripture: Exodus 4:1-17

Today's Devotional: Fear is having faith, but it's placing your faith in the wrong things. Fear is placing your faith in the "what ifs". So much of our fears are focused on things that may or may not happen. There is no reason to fear things that might not even happen. Even people in the Bible struggled in fearing their own "what ifs". You will read today about Moses' "what if" fear and how God gave him strength to overcome his fear.

Response by: Doug Giffin

If you think about it, the “what if” fear, is the silliest of them all.  What you’re really fearing is a situation that has not occurred, may not occur or may not occur to the extent you fear.  For illustration sake, let’s say I am really fearful of cloudy days.  I am petrified when the sun doesn’t shine.  Now, the weather man says that tomorrow may be cloudy or it could be partly cloudy or the sun might shine.  It all depends on the how the weather systems move and when they move.  Wouldn’t it be silly for me to lose sleep about it tonight?  I have no control over the weather and whether it’s cloudy, sunny or some combination of the two.  I will still have to deal with it either way.  And, it won’t kill me!  But I still worry and fear the what-ifs because I don’t have faith in God who created me.

If we give up control of our lives and trust that God, who has a plan for each of us, will take us through and sustain us in whatever happens the what-ifs lose their power.  The clouds will come, the rain will fall and the wind of the world will blow but I will remain, I will survive, heck I might even thrive, because God strengthens me.  Now I can’t tell you that you’ll never say or think “what-if” and not have trepidation.  We’re human, just like Jesus was before he was to be crucified when he asked his father “So, what if I don’t have to die” (I’m paraphrasing).  But just like for him, God’s plan, God’s protection and God’s strength gets us through.

Something to talk about: What are some of the "what ifs" that fuel your fears?

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