What Fear?

The LORD is my light and my salvation;
whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the stronghold of my life;
of whom shall I be afraid?
—Psalm 27:1

When I was trapped in addiction, I looked everywhere I could think of for answers. I prayed constantly for God to lead me to the right resource. But I couldn’t seem to be able to find the right book, or conference, or meeting to show me the way out. All of them promised to hold the key to freedom; if I would just follow their program. And I tried. God knows how hard I tried. I was desperate to get out. Each new presentation or idea, or encouragement would bring quick, temporary relief, but I always ended up back in the same place. Often in a worse condition than before. I just couldn’t find the path that would lead me to freedom.

In time, a deep sense of foreboding settled in. I could clearly see that if unchecked, eventually my addiction would exact a great price. Exactly what that price would be? I could only wonder. My imagination ran wild with fearful options: divorce, estrangement from my family, public disgrace, loss of friends, loss of employment, homelessness, shunned by my church… I lived in fear of I didn’t know what. But I became certain that my hidden life would, one day, crash into at least one of those.

The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?

For most of my life, I had been trying to use God’s “light” to illuminate the path I needed to find and follow. — a cosmic flashlight that would illuminate the answer. In Psalm 27, David is saying that God is so much more than the directed light. He is also the object being illuminated. He is essentially describing God turning His face toward him. In that light, David can see both where he is and where he is going. Darkness has been overwhelmed by light. God’s presence in the midst of the attack.

It is in that clarity, that David sees that God doesn’t accomplish salvation; He IS salvation. In God’s presence, David sees himself delivered from a narrow place of confinement and danger into a wide open space where the former danger lacks any power. It is from this vantage point that David realizes that his fear was unfounded. From a wide, open plain, in the presence of God Almighty, no object of fear could find him.

Then came the knock on my door. Suddenly, my life crashed into all of the fears I had imagined: divorce, estrangement from my family, public disgrace, loss of friends, loss of employment, homelessness, and shunned by my church. It took a couple years for the dust to settle and reveal damage. But the crash occurred when the police knocked on my door with a search warrant. And an arrest warrant. And my life started to unravel before my eyes.

Six hundred fifty three days in jail. Twenty two months. Twenty three hours per day in a seven by fourteen foot cell. Nothing but four walls, a steel desk, and a Bible. And that turned out to be more than enough.

During those long days, I faced divorce, estrangement from my family, public disgrace, and loss of friends. In the year that followed, came unemployment, homelessness, and being shunned by my church. But those days in jail brought something else as well. An identity. A relationship. And power. Power to continue to put one foot in front of the other.

In the Bible, I found God in a way I had never known before. I found that He wasn’t interested in showing me some path out of addiction. He IS the path. He wasn’t interested in illuminating some means of strength in the midst of loss. He IS the means. As I poured through His Word, day after day, I found that He wasn’t simply constructing a fortress for me to run to when under attack. He IS the fortress.

The LORD is the stronghold of my life.

David helped me see the truth. He discovered centuries before I did, that God IS the stronghold — my place of strength, my fortified refuge, the place I can retreat to that cannot be taken. This is not some place God provides. Not some blessing He gives. God IS my safe place.

So I don’t need to fear the knock on the door or the arrival of the divorce paperwork. I don’t have to live in the uncertainty of where tomorrow’s provision will come from. I already know. I am surrounded by the presence of the creator of the universe. I live within the source of my assurance, my provision, and my life.

Of whom shall I be afraid?