Beat fear with the presence of Christ …

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Most of us are much more courageous when we aren’t alone.

Just think about some of the more frightening scenarios people experience:

    • For kids, it’s the thick darkness of nighttime, when the simplest sound can trigger a torrent of frightening thoughts.
    • The sick person sitting in an emergency waiting room, or laying in a hospital bed, all alone except for the beeps and buzzes and hums of equipment.
    • Facing life’s demands as a single parent with more month and mouths to feed than paycheck to provide from.

Contrast such scenarios with the police officer paired with a partner, going about his work with someone he knows will “have his back.”

We’re at least a little braver when we’re not alone. That’s because we know hard times, scary times, life’s “dark” times, are better faced with someone. Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 explains it this way:

“Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”

But what do you do when you are alone?

Or what about those times when you really need to take time alone so you can think things through?

You can beat fear by practicing the presence of Christ.

Greater than having another fallible human being around is the presence of our perfect and all-powerful Lord.

Even in the midst of life’s darkest moments, we can experience peace and courage when our Shepherd is present:

“Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me …” Psalm 23:4a.

Richard Dahlstrom illustrates how the presence of a shepherd fosters peace and courage in this story from “O2: Breathing New Life Into Faith”:

    One glorious autumn … I spent an afternoon climbing with a friend who grew up raising sheep in the Alps. We were climbing near the bottom of a ski area … [near] this steep green slope where [a] delightful flock of sheep [ate] all week, their bells ringing as they gaze and munch the lush Alpine meadow … [When I got close to the them] I tried to speak gently … and though this was their slope and not mine, their food and not mine, their country and not mine, my presence was no comfort to them. They began talking loudly to each other and instantly fled from me as if I were a wolf.

    So later that day I’m climbing with my friend Martin, and at one point I’m just hanging from the rope … Then I notice, far up the slope, a man and his son walking down the mountain, passing through the sheep. Suddenly the man says a few German words. He isn’t shouting or cajoling; he’s just speaking.

    The effect, however, is immediate. All the sheep come running toward him, first the older sheep and then the lambs. Their bells are really ringing now as some of the sheep are running toward the shepherd. When they’re all within spitting distance of the shepherd, he walks down to the ski area parking lot, and they follow.

    From there, he leads the sheep through town, right through the main street, where some people are sitting down to eat ice cream and roasted chestnuts and where other people are buying their clothes and doing their banking. Right in the midst of all these terrifying people – sheep! And on they walk, in the middle of commercial chaos, as fearless as American tourists because of the presence of their shepherd.

The presence of our Shepherd brings us the peace and courage we need to face any season of life:

“The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever,” Psalm 23:1-6.