"For the Lord your God is living among you.
He is a mighty saviour.
He will take delight in you with gladness.
With his love, he will calm all your fears.
He will rejoice over you with joyful songs."
(Zephaniah 3:17, NLT)
I've had an interesting first week of the challenge I set myself (If you missed it, and therefore don't have a clue what I'm talking about, you can read the original post here).
The first couple of days were reasonably uneventful – going to work, coming home and so on. It wasn't until Wednesday when the first thing that I'd call noteworthy happened. I was walking down the road on a break from work, and noticed a mother walking along the opposite side of the road with a pushchair. As I got closer, I could hear her singing to the child while she walked along.
As I thought more about it, I remembered that, somewhere in the Bible, it talked about God rejoicing over us with singing. I knew it was in there somewhere, although I couldn't remember exactly where. But at that moment I had a real-life illustration of what God does for every one of us. Because He loves us.
Then, that evening on my way home, I had a car accident.
I'm OK, by the way. So was the other driver.
Normally this isn't the sort of situation where I'd be praising God. Ordinarily, I'd probably be going down the "why did You let this happen to me?" road. But, as I've embarked on this challenge, I've been looking out for something different.
At this point I could talk about warfare and the fact that I seem to get this kind of opposition when I step out and start being bolder, but that's another post for another day. Besides, it's not something I feel particularly qualified to talk about.
I could also talk about the fact that I was safe. That trying to sort everything out with my insurance has gone miraculously smoothly. That God is working and doing things in situations which, in the grand scheme of things, are pretty insignificant. That's been such a blessing, and I definitely don't want to take anything away from that, but there's something bigger, even more remarkable, that I've come to realise.
My fear was gone.
Now, before you think I've gone completely insane, I'm not at all suggesting that I'm now some kind of fearless Wonderwoman type who'd quite happily go a couple of rounds with a hungry lion, or play chicken with an F1 car. I'm definitely not. I'd argue that fear is a perfectly normal, healthy response in certain situations. But that's not really what I'm talking about here.
What I'm talking about is the kind of fear that, when you think about it, isn't really all that rational. The kind of fear that made me nervous walking down the road on my own. The kind of fear that would make me worry about going outside to the rubbish bins in the dark, or jump at every noise if I was at home alone. The kind of fear that would, a couple of months ago, have made me terrified of ever driving a car again. The kind of fear that was preventing me from experiencing life to the full.
I hadn't really realised it was there. But recently, I've noticed that it's started to disappear. I can't explain it. I can't really even describe it. But I think I've had a glimpse of what Paul meant in Philippians when he talked about "the peace of God, which transcends all understanding" (Phil. 4:7, NIV).
It wasn't something I had been specifically praying about. To my knowledge, there wasn't anyone praying for me about it. But, while I was busy doing other things, He sneaked in and healed me. Nothing visibly happened. There was nothing sudden, no fireworks. Just His perfect love, the love that casts out fear, helping me to stay calm. Stopping me from completely freaking out. Letting me get on with my life. Enjoying what He has to offer me, and what He might want to say to me.
When I got home and thought back over my day, I remembered what I'd seen at lunchtime. Remembered that I'd been meaning to look up that passage. When I did (incidentally, I love Bible Gateway for that kind of thing), I found the verse from Zephaniah at the top of this post.
I love how the words of that verse bring those two seemingly unrelated things together. Although it wasn't in the way I expected, I'm so grateful that God's used what happened that day to show me once again what He's done for me – particularly in light of my recent grumbling about how He doesn't seem to do what I want. That's right, He doesn't. But (very slowly) I'm starting to learn that my way usually isn't the best way, and that even though it might not be what I expected, His way's always best.
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