Hope in the Night (A 30-Day Reflection on Anxiety and Fear)

Twentieth Night: Is Fear Real?

"In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord; My hand was stretched out in the night without ceasing; My soul refused to be comforted."
- Psalms 77:2

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Reflection:

When I was still young, I always had nightmares. I dreamt of drowning. I dreamt of falling from high places, never reaching the bottom. I dreamt of running from monsters in a very, agonizingly slow pace. I dreamt of losing my family. I always got woken up screaming, and then my mother would come to me and hug me, comforting me. I would cry in relief. That I woke up in a reality where my mother is there to expel the terror I had.

We do have those. I still had those nightmares. Except that these nightmares already invaded our realities. We sometimes struggle to sleep, not because of nightmares that we often still had for sure, but because life itself became the monster in the night. Everyday... every single day, we were greeted with our fears hovering over us. Our fears were not only nightly anxieties but also daily worries. Over and over again, as our age reaches the end, we were haunted by fears and anxieties and... what-ifs.

Well, dreams are scary. It can still be. But life? Reality is a whole new level of terrifying nightmare. This is why many of us go to the comforting presence of the world. People jump into their favorite apps on their phones. People drink to forget their problems just for one night. People got addicted to drugs. And with just a simple checking of our phones for texts first thing in the morning can exhibit anxiousness or fear over something.

Fear... over and over again people in the Bible exhibited fear in different circumstances. Some were a little lower level than ours, some were way up there. The early church experienced horrible deaths in the hands of Romans and Pharisees. The first batch of Israelites experienced fear for 400 years of enslavement in Egypt. Moses feared that he may not able to talk properly in front of God's people when the Lord chose him to lead them out of Egypt. In Psalm 77:2, the Psalmist cried, "In the night my hand is stretched out without wearying; my soul refuses to be comforted". In Lamentations, Jeremiah was in deep depression. Lots and lots of Christians nowadays feared for something.

Is there a word for a fear of reality? It's always the same, our fears. It was more specific than when we were kids, and fear can really bully us hard. Judgments from people, unknown future, chaos, war, this pandemic we were facing now. These are circumstantial fear that keeps coming back. We fear that history might repeat itself. We fear that our family may suffer because of some indecisiveness of our leaders. We fear that war may take place. We fear failures. We fear life itself. In just one snap, we became slave of fear.

But maybe, God has something to say amidst our panicky thoughts. Maybe God has something in store for us. Maybe we were just too clouded and scared to see God in a bigger picture. Maybe we failed to realized that we need someone much powerful than us to fix this mess up.

Maybe we should just stop whatever we're doing. Perhaps we should pray.

And ponder of the real question.

What does God wanted to tell us?

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Prayer:

Dear God, help me remove my fear. Help me trust in You and cling onto You at all times. Calm my mind and soul, knowing that You are Sovereign and in control of my life and my surroundings. Reveal to me what You wanted to say - through Your words or through the circumstances. I am putting my hope in You. In Jesus' Name, Amen.