Care Instructions for a Life Worth Living

What Voice Do You Listen To?

Danny is a sky-diving, mountain-climbing, hang-gliding thrill-seeker, but in the cave he felt sheer panic. He was terrified. He tried fighting his fear, but he kept picturing his dead body moldering in the cave. Finally, he told his guide he was about to lose it, and the guide said, “Danny, close your eyes and listen to my voice. I will keep talking, calmly, and guide you through this. We will be okay. I have been here before. I will get you to the other side. But you must listen to my voice. It will not work for you to let your thoughts run wild. Just focus on my voice.”  Danny did so. What freed him from panic and fear was not trying hard to quit thinking fearful thoughts. It was listening to another voice.

What voice do you listen to when you’re in the cave and it’s dark, when the ceiling is low and you can’t back out? The Spirit longs to flow in our minds all the time. One reason why people have found memorizing Scripture helpful is that it helps us listen to the voice of our guide when we are in the cave. We set our minds on those thoughts that equip us for life. God does not want us to live in worry or fear. He wants us to live with bold confidence in his power. “For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.”

In the Bible, we see a pattern in which God rarely sends people into situations where their comfort level is high. Rather He promises to be with them in their fear. It is God’s presence — not comfortable circumstances — that brings people to the best version of themselves.

Paul said that when we live in the flow of the Spirit, he does not make us timid, but instead gives us power and love. This is not the only place in the Bible where we see a close connection between receiving love and living in power. The apostle John makes the same association in one of the most famous statements in the Bible: “There is no fear in love... perfect love casts out fear.”

When we live in the flow of the Spirit, we let the perfect love of God wash over us until our fear begins to leave. Modern science has confirmed what John wrote so many centuries ago. Love and fear are literally incompatible in our bodies. God wants to love you — and in loving you, to cast out your fear.

Jesus was facing adversity when he told his followers that if they had faith, they could command a mountain and it would be cast into the sea. When my focus is on the mountain, I am driven by my fear. When my focus is on God, however, I am made alive by my faith. But if I did not have the mountain, I would not know that faith could be in me.

Use your imagination to picture being shepherded by the Lord in green pastures beside still waters. Is there any room for fear?