July 4 - Hope. Don't Panic!

July 4 – Hope. Don’t Panic!

“Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the Lord.” (Psalm 31:24)

David understood hope.  He had been through a lot and would continue to face difficulty throughout His life.  He knew that God would always be there in the end, even when He couldn’t see how it would be possible at the moment.

Just a couple of verses prior to this, he said, “In my alarm I said, ‘I am cut off from your sight!’ Yet you heard my cry for mercy when I called to you for help.” (Psalm 31:22)

We do get easily alarmed, don’t we?

I have tried to train myself not to overreact at first glance when an emergency faces me.  Now, that isn’t to say that I don’t freak out.  Sometimes I just can’t help myself. 

One day, Carol and I were in our basement doing laundry.  I reached into the utility sink to pull the lint out of the trap – I hated that wet, soggy lint, but it had to get out of there, and I was in place to do it.  Carol was transferring some clothes from the washer to the dryer as I was reaching in.  I put my hand in, grabbed the lint and immediately began screaming.  In my hand was a drowned mouse.  Carol had no idea why I was screaming, but she joined me without thought.  The two of us then broke into uncontrollable laughter at our insanity.  Then I dealt with the stupid mouse.

Her reaction to my scream was to join me.  She had no idea why, but she was alarmed because I was alarmed.

That probably isn’t what David would want to happen, but it’s exactly what he did.  When he got frightened, he automatically assumed the worst and believed that God was gone from him.

God hadn’t gone … David was blinded by his panic.

God isn’t gone, but sometimes we get blinded by the panic of the moment.  If we could just learn to look back on our lives and see the many ways that God continues to be there for us, we’d quickly realize that we can be strong and take heart.  If we hope in the Lord, He will always be there.