Early in our marriage, Tony traveled frequently, which meant I was home with young children. Fear riddled me in the night. I worried constantly about Tony’s safety. Frequently I slept with the lights on. Finally, I decided to turn my devotional life into a study of deliverance from my fear, using Psalm 34 steadily until I learned to trust the Lord completely in this area. I began to arm myself with Scriptures, memorizing and quoting repeatedly, “I sought the Lord, and He answered me, and delivered me from all my fears…. encamps around those who fear Him, and rescues them” (Psalm 34:4, 7).
Perhaps your flood stage comes through financial duress. Possibly it is a broken or breaking marriage, an unfaithful spouse, a prodigal child, parenting your grandchildren. Or maybe you have never married and still scan the horizon for the man of your dreams, while battling a broken heart over your singleness. Perhaps your current crisis involves job loss, or underemployment, or discrimination, or problems with your health, or infertility.
Fear is natural in the floodplains of our lives. But fear is no match for God. He creates goodness out of grotesque situations; and in the midst of our Jordan River, we remember where the Lord has delivered us in the past. These memories are souvenir stones of God’s faithfulness. God can part the waters, God can dry the river bed, God can make a way for us. He has done it before. He can do it again. These are the instances we call to mind. These moments reinstall our faith and reboot our hope and empower us to take each day as it comes.
