When I am afraid, I will trust in you. Psalm 56:3

When Chandler was younger, he used a phrase that qualifies for one of those priceless things that kids say: “You have to get over your afraid.” Turning “afraid” into a noun is something a child gets to do, and in some ways it captures the truth better than the word he wanted, which would have been “fear.”

I’ve thought a lot about getting over my fear, but I’ve never thought about getting over my afraid. Come to think of it, getting over my “afraid” makes a lot of sense.

Fear is a human emotion. It is a dark cloud or a freezing hesitation or a claustrophobic entrapment. It may or may not be attached to what’s actually happening.

Fear can get you all by itself, but your “afraid” has to have an antecedent. You’re afraid of something. Your fear can be vague, but your “afraid” is specific, and it helps to identify what it is. You are afraid of what?

Often when we face into what we’re really afraid of we discover:
1) It isn’t as overwhelming as we thought,
2) it’s just in our head,
3) we can actually find something to do about it; we can take manageable steps toward a solution.

Besides, God once told Isaiah, “Do not fear what they fear, and do not dread it. The Lord Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy, he is the one you are to fear, he is the one you are to dread, and he will be a sanctuary.” (Isaiah 8:12-14).

In other words, do not fear what everybody else fears; fear the Lord instead, because when you fear the Lord, He becomes a place of refuge for your fearful heart and you don’t have to be afraid anymore. You can get over your afraid by being afraid of the right thing.