Don’t Fear the Future — God Is Already There

• I want to talk to you about tomorrow. Not about the plans you’ve made or the appointments in your diary, but about that space just beyond what you can see. That space where your imagination runs. And too often it runs wild. It’s the place of the unanswered question. The unopened envelope, the doctor’s report you haven’t received, the door that hasn’t yet opened.
• Or worse, the door you fear might close. I see it in your faces. That tightening around the eyes when you let your thoughts wander too far ahead. That quickening of the pulse in the silent hours of the night. You’re not alone in that feeling. Not a single one of us in this room is a stranger to the chill that whispers, “What if?” And I want you to hear me clearly, to feel that chill is not a failure of faith.
• It is a testimony to your humanity. You are a living soul, sensitive to the winds of change, aware of the fragility of life. When the Lord God looked at Adam and said, “It is not good for man to be alone,” he was speaking of more than companionship. He was naming the inherent vulnerability of the human condition.
• We were not created to be self-contained fortresses, utterly unmoved by the storms that gather on the horizon. So, if you have felt the tremble in your spirit, do not heap condemnation upon yourself. Do not add the weight of guilt to the weight of worry. The enemy would love to see you do that. To be so busy accusing yourself of being afraid that you have no strength left to lift your eyes to the one who dispels fear.
• Because you see, when the scripture comes to us time and again with those words, “Fear not,” it is never a scolding. It is never a cold command from a distant deity who cannot understand our trembling. Oh no, it is always, always an invitation. It is the voice of a father who sees his child about to step into a room that looks too dark and he kneels down, looks into those wide, anxious eyes, and says, “You don’t have to be afraid.
• I am right here with you. Take my hand. Fear not, for I am with you. Be not dismayed, for I am your God.” He does not begin by changing the circumstances. He begins by announcing his presence. He starts with the solution before you have even fully named the problem. So the first step out of the prison of anxiety about tomorrow is this beautiful, simple, liberating act.