If we truly feared the Lord and held the Holy One in such honor and reverence that we trusted ourselves completely to His hands, then none of this nonsense would really matter to us. But our fears reveal our failings of faith. I fear what people think of me and are saying about me behind my back. Why? Because deep down inside I long for the approval of men even more than the acceptance of my Heavenly Father. I fear the decline of our culture and its morality. Why? Because, if I’m honest, I fear the culture’s influence on my children more than I trust my God’s guiding and protecting hand upon their lives.

When I am afraid, I will trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can mortal man do to me? – Psalm 56:3-4

Do not call conspiracy everything that these people call conspiracy; do not fear what they fear, and do not dread it. The LORD Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy, he is the one you are to fear, he is the one you are to dread. – Isaiah 8:12-13

Why are we so prone to fear? Why do people like to spread rumors about dangerous conspiracies? Sometimes it even seems to me that Christians are the most likely ones to believe wild-eyed speculation about conspiracies and rumors of impending doom. We fear that the stock market will collapse or that America will be wiped off the face of the map. May I be so bold as to ask a seemingly flippant question: So what? Who cares?

No, I am not really that care-free, but I really think we sometimes have our eyes on the wrong place. Our hopes and fears are driven by things that change with each passing day and that just don’t matter that much in the end. Do we really believe that our lives are in the hands of Almighty God and that He loves us and is ordering all things for His glory and for our good? Do we? I’m guessing that we don’t, not really, not when we’re holding our breath waiting for the next turn in the stock market or the next development in the national political scene.

Our fear betrays our lack of faith. If we truly feared the Lord and held the Holy One in such honor and reverence that we trusted ourselves completely to His hands, then none of this nonsense would really matter to us. But our fears reveal our failings of faith. I fear what people think of me and are saying about me behind my back. Why? Because deep down inside I long for the approval of men even more than the acceptance of my Heavenly Father. I fear the decline of our culture and its morality. Why? Because, if I’m honest, I fear the culture’s influence on my children more than I trust my God’s guiding and protecting hand upon their lives.

If I look around me and I look at my own short-comings, I have good reason to fear. I have been betrayed by people I’ve trusted. I have seen Christian kids brought up in “good” homes walk away from Jesus and embrace a sinful, worldly lifestyle. I know my own failures as a father and husband all too well. I see the foolish choices of our politicians and the mounting debt they want to leave, which will probably cripple our country in less than 25 years.

But if I look into God’s Word, get down on my knees and look up to my Savior, then I get a different perspective. When I am afraid, who will I trust? When I am surrounded, to whom shall I turn? “Do not fear what they fear,” God says. “Do not dread it.” Despite everything my eyes see and all that the culture tells me, I will trust in my God. By His grace, I will bow before Him and confess: You are Mighty! You are Holy! You rule over all and my life is in Your hands!

What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? – Romans 8:31-32

Jason A. Van Bemmel is a Teaching Elder in the Presbyterian Church in America and is Pastor of Faith PCA in Cheraw, S.C. This article appeared on his blog Ponderings of a Pilgrim Pastor and is used with permission.