Fight fear with fear

Psalm 34

February 3

    We think of David as this unflappable young man who stared down a giant. What gave him such fearlessness?

    First of all, David had fear. He may not have shown it or voiced it, but we see in today’s psalm he had fears but were delivered from them. The word for fears in verse 4 is different than the fear of the Lord found in 7, 9, 11, and can be translated as “barn” or storehouse. I take that as saying his fears were as big as a barn! Acknowledge your fears in the world and don’t minimize them.  

    Second, magnify the Lord (verse 3 in the King James and New King James) means to enlarge our perception of God. “He's big but God's bigger,” Junior Asparagus sang in Veggietales, “and when I think of Him, that's when I figure with His help, little guys can do big things too.” Know that God has His angel to guard you. His eyes, ears and face are towards those with humble hearts. As a magnifying glass doesn’t enlarge the object, only our perception, so too does magnifying God help us see Him as bigger than our fears.

    Finally, maintain your moral integrity in the fear and reverence of the Lord. Several times in today's psalm David encourages us to righteous living. We should fight the fear of the world with the fear of the Lord.

    Another way to enlarge our perception and understanding of God is to draw closer to Him. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you, James 4:8 says.  The closer you get to God in your actions, the larger He will be in your life; the further you get from the fears of the world, the smaller they will appear.