Isaiah 12:2a The Song of the Redeemed
The next line of the poem addresses how this temptation towards fear would be an inconsistent attitude among the saved:
“Behold, God is my salvation:
I will trust,
and I will not be afraid.
(2) Since God is our deliverance, we should trust him (be courageous) and not fear the world.
If God is our deliverer, it changes the way we live. We are delivered from more than just our iniquity and guilt. We are delivered from the fears that push humanity towards idolatry and false religious solutions. This is why the Bible refers to worry as a sin. Fear and Anxiety are the opposites of trust and faith.
Dr. Kirk J. Schneider, author of Life Enhancing Anxiety: Key to a Sane World, defines anxiety as “a terror of the unknown or a fear of the unknown” as opposed to regular fear as “that unpleasant emotion caused by a specific object or person” (that threatens pain or danger).
Anxiety is something that every human deals with. The answer for it (and the characteristic we are looking for here) is not getting rid of it nor the denial of unknowns and unknowable that trigger anxiety, but rather coping with the anxiety well. If we have the right tools and skills, we can go from terror educing anxiety to “embracing and living with the depth and mysteries of existence… We can live on the edge of wonder and discovery as opposed to terror and overwhelm.”
As far as I know, Schneider is not a believer. We believers would say that the best skill in facing anxiety and fear well, is the knowledge that God is with us and for us and that we can trust Him with our unknowns and the unknowable.
Here, Isaiah uses a couplet to describe the saved as a person who trusts God and who does not fear. This is courage. Not a courage that does not see danger. Not a courage that knows no fear. Not a courage that does not experience anxiety. Rather, the courage of someone who knows that the fearful and dangerous things cannot thwart God’s plans for them.
In Isaiah’s day, Assyria (and later Babylon) were a threat on the horizon. God’s message (and Isaiah’s) was to say, “Assyria is not a threat that God cannot handle.” And yet, Israel and even Judah, were inclined to create alliances with worldly powers for protection and strength. This exposed a total lack of faith—of trust—in God.
“Behold, God is my salvation:
I will trust,
and I will not be afraid.
(2) Since God is our deliverance, we should trust him (be courageous) and not fear the world.
If God is our deliverer, it changes the way we live. We are delivered from more than just our iniquity and guilt. We are delivered from the fears that push humanity towards idolatry and false religious solutions. This is why the Bible refers to worry as a sin. Fear and Anxiety are the opposites of trust and faith.
Dr. Kirk J. Schneider, author of Life Enhancing Anxiety: Key to a Sane World, defines anxiety as “a terror of the unknown or a fear of the unknown” as opposed to regular fear as “that unpleasant emotion caused by a specific object or person” (that threatens pain or danger).
Anxiety is something that every human deals with. The answer for it (and the characteristic we are looking for here) is not getting rid of it nor the denial of unknowns and unknowable that trigger anxiety, but rather coping with the anxiety well. If we have the right tools and skills, we can go from terror educing anxiety to “embracing and living with the depth and mysteries of existence… We can live on the edge of wonder and discovery as opposed to terror and overwhelm.”
As far as I know, Schneider is not a believer. We believers would say that the best skill in facing anxiety and fear well, is the knowledge that God is with us and for us and that we can trust Him with our unknowns and the unknowable.
Here, Isaiah uses a couplet to describe the saved as a person who trusts God and who does not fear. This is courage. Not a courage that does not see danger. Not a courage that knows no fear. Not a courage that does not experience anxiety. Rather, the courage of someone who knows that the fearful and dangerous things cannot thwart God’s plans for them.
In Isaiah’s day, Assyria (and later Babylon) were a threat on the horizon. God’s message (and Isaiah’s) was to say, “Assyria is not a threat that God cannot handle.” And yet, Israel and even Judah, were inclined to create alliances with worldly powers for protection and strength. This exposed a total lack of faith—of trust—in God.
Comments
Post a Comment