Evil tidings

Psa 112:7 He shall not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting in the LORD.


We are afraid aren't we?


We live in fear.


Are you shaking your head saying , no, you don't live in fear? That's great then, really great. Generally speaking we live with at least a bit of fear in our lives. We fear the future. We fear the present, and sometimes we even fear our pasts. What makes us so fearful? Life in general doesn't it? Seriously. So we pump ourselves full of drugs that are supposed to make us less anxious, and we smile because that drug has masked our fears, our worries, our anxieties. Isn't anxiety a fear? Think about it. If you're anxious over something you're worried about it and worry is what? It's fearing something or other. The root of ALL these pretty words we like to use - anxiousness, worry, anxiety, upset, stress- is FEAR. We pretty up the FEAR word because we don't like to be called cowards and people that are fearful are thought of as weak, as cowards and heaven forbid we appear weak to ourselves or others. We're strong! We're fine! We're just wonderful aside from a little stress, aside from a bit of worry, aside from a touch of anxiety. Do you see it? Brush away the fancy words and expose the bottom layer, the source, the root of all that masking and you are left with fear.


Fear. We need to admit we are fear, that we are afraid, that life and all it's complexities has us frightened.


This verse in Psalms- 'He shall NOT be afraid of evil tidings' - is telling us what?


What's an evil tiding? It sound foreboding doesn't it. An evil tiding coming out of the west… sounds mystic and creepy and scary. It sounds like ancient mumbo jumbo doesn't it?? But think about it, an evil tiding is nothing more than a sense of fear over the future. An evil tiding- a report, a rumor of something bad to come. And being AFRAID of a thought of something bad to come is worrying and we worry so much. Most of what we worry about is future tense. We rarely worry over the past, unless it's in connection with our future. We might worry over something that happened in the past, but we do so thinking about how it affects us now, or may affect us later. We can feel sadness over a past event without worrying about it, but to actually worry about it we bring it into our future.


He shall NOT be afraid of evil tidings. Why? Seriously. If we suspect evil in our future why shouldn't we be afraid? We are taught to worry. Those who don't worry are considered strange. We say it is NORMAL to worry, normal to be fearful. We tell ourselves this because otherwise we will be revealed to be very, very fearful people and who likes the idea of being surrounded by a bunch of people living in fear. We'd much rather walk about nodding and smiling, understanding that our fears are shared and normal, because we call them anxiety and hey, who DOESN'T have anxiety? I'm guilty myself of doing this. I've told my children it's normal to feel anxious, it's normal to worry, it's normal to feel out of sorts. Why have I told them this? Because when we think of something as being normal it makes it OKAY to feel that way. It makes us feel less odd, less out of sorts. To say it's normal to be scared, to be fearful, somehow just makes it seem less scary. If it's normal then hey, we can't help but feel this way and well, if it's all normal then why the heck not go on those normal medicines people are taking in vast quantities to sedate those normal feelings. They're NOT NORMAL! They are prevalent, so prevalent we've called them the norm, but sin is prevalent too and that is called the norm also! Does calling something normal make it good? Does it make it normal? We mask things in words that make them acceptable. Years ago someone had the vapors, or were prone to having the vapors. Years ago people were under the weather and years ago people either learned to cope or were shipped off to atrocious facilities that would commit atrocious treatments upon them to try and cure them of their abnormalities. We are much better off today because we call things normal they would have called strange and unacceptable years ago. We are civilized now and if we can take a pill or four to calm our strangeness then hey, we are normal again.


Am I against pills?! NO! I took pills that I believe helped save my life back when I was dealing with horrible post partum depression. I'm not against pills at all. I'm against pretending that we aren't FEARFUL people, I'm against pretending that under the guise of stress we claim we are NOT fearful. I'm against calling things NORMAL- things that clearly aren't normal. Do you remember a few years ago the actor Tom Cruise went on a talk show and talked down about Brooke Shields because she took medication for her post partum, he said she should have been able to handle it without drugs. There are a BUNCH of people that like to talk like that- saying what other people should be able to handle and whatnot and I'm NOT going to be one of those people. All of you who are taking any drugs to help you cope with life don't just stop because you think it's not Godly. God has provided the technology to produce drugs and our 6000 year old sin bodies are so degraded from the original bodies mankind was giving that we can't just arbitrarily say stop all drugs and let God provide or die. Yes, use nature's medicines, use diet, use foods, herbs and such as medicines all you can which is best, but DO NOT presume to believe that all medicine is bad and that EVERYONE should just stop all their medicines and deal with it. Even our food is contaminated, our soil is contaminated every time it rains and the water that has been absorbed from contaminated lakes pours down upon that soil. We can't ESCAPE the results of sin poisoning our world in many, many ways. We can do the best we can in the ways we can and we can pray, we can TRUST that in our endeavors to survive, God guides us and we follow His guidance.



Psa 112:7 He shall not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting in the LORD.


We are fearful. We have to admit to this and understand that as the every day fears fill our lives we need to FIX our hearts upon the LORD, trusting in the LORD. We have to make trusting the LORD a priority. We have to make having faith and believing in the LORD paramount in our lives. We have to allow the spiritual man in us to prevail because the carnal man in us will have us cowering and beaten down by our fears until we believe we can't live without everything surrounding us. The carnal man in us would have us give up GOD rather than give up our lives and things in our lives. The carnal man that has Satan for his god will stop at nothing to destroy all trust in God.


Have you ever had your heart fixed on something? Your mind set on something? Have you ever been headstrong towards something? You know what it means to set your sights on something and NOT stop until you get that something. We need to FIX our hearts on the LORD. This is something we need to DO. This is an action we need to accomplish. Fixing our hearts on the Lord, trusting in the Lord isn't something that come automatic to us. We have to CHOOSE the Lord.


We have to agree that the world we live in has many fears, many worries, many stressors and if the devil has his way we will be taken over by those fears, those worries, those stressors, we will be consumed by them. The evil tidings in our lives will scare us to eternal death if we don't fix our hearts on the Lord, if we don't trust in the LORD.


Wouldn't it be great to say- I am NOT afraid of any evil that is coming my way because my heart is fixed, I am trusting in the LORD?


Trusting in the LORD means when all around us life is falling apart into so many heart breaking pieces we will believe in God and the promises He's given to us for a better world, a perfect world in eternity. Evil tidings will continue to come to each and every one of us, we need to choose NOT to be afraid- NOT to be consumed by the fear so that we stop believing in the LORD. The devil will stop at nothing to bring us to that place of unbelief, that place where trust is the LORD is gone. The devil will tell us that we can handle life on our own, or should be able to do so. The devil will also tell us we can't handle life on our own and we should end it. The devil will use EVERY contrivance he can, he will be contradictory, he will do anything and everything to claim us- yes, you are than important to Him. God sent His Son to die for us! To save us! We are that important to God!


Psa 112:7 He shall not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting in the LORD.


Dear Lord! Please help us as we live in this fearful world, as we live in an age where fear is masked into being something acceptable. Help us sweet LORD to fix our hearts upon you, help us to TRUST in YOU and nothing else- not even ourselves, especially not ourselves, but wholly in YOU and Your love, Your righteousness, Your forgiveness! You did for us what we could NEVER do for ourselves and we must never forget that, Lord, never! As evil tiding prevail and multiply in our lives let us not be fearful of them but rather trusting in YOU no matter what. In our darkest days, in our darkest hours please Lord help our unbelief, protect us!


In our Savior's love and ALL that entails!


Amen!