One morning several years ago, while getting dressed after taking my shower, I heard the toilet on my daughter’s Barbie doll house flush. Now considering the fact that it was very early and she was still sleeping soundly when I got into the shower I was pretty certain that it was not her flushing the toilet. That left only two other options. Either someone else had flushed the toilet or the doll house itself had just decided to flush the little toilet. I cracked open the bathroom door to peek into her bedroom which I could immediately see was still completely dark. This confirmed my suspicions that she had not been the one to flush the tiny but very realistically sounding toilet in the doll house.
Now I must confess that my heart skipped a few beats when the toilet chose at that moment to flush again. That flush was immediately followed by three more flushes and at this point, I decided either the doll house must be possessed or there was a serial killer that liked flushing doll toilets hiding in the dark in my daughter’s bedroom. I honestly wasn’t sure which one sounded less frightening at that moment, but as it turned out it was neither. The doll house apparently had some sort of problem in the bathroom because it continued to randomly flush the toilet at odd moments or anytime you bumped into the doll house. It wasn’t possessed and there was no serial killer, just a short in the system somewhere.
Isn’t it funny how fast you can go from being just fine one moment and completely terrified the next? It doesn’t take much to do it either, just a random noise in the dark or a toilet flushing that shouldn’t be flushing and suddenly our heart is racing and we are frozen in fear. It’s easy to laugh about it now but the sound of that little toilet flushing that morning nearly did me in. My heart raced and a hundred terrifying possibilities were flying through my mind within a millisecond of hearing that sound. And all of that fear I was feeling was for nothing. There was absolutely nothing to fear. One little spark and suddenly fear flamed swift and momentarily out of control.
For those few brief moments, I imagined all these terrible possibilities that were completely a waste of time because there was absolutely nothing to fear. And isn’t that what fear does? It takes away rational thought and replaces it with all sorts of crazy “what ifs” and our imaginations run quickly to all sorts of places it should never go. If we do not immediately reign fear at the moment we experience it, there is no telling where it could take us. Believe me, I know. I am a self-confessed recovering chicken. I have lived most of my life a prisoner of fear. Sometimes it still rears its ugly head and reminds me just how vicious this ugly monster can be.
Fear can be a very cruel master. It can completely take over your life if you allow it to. It can hold you prisoner in a prison with walls stronger than any prison known to man. It can truly paralyze its victims and stop them from living the life they were created to have. Fear is an ugly foe for anyone to face. And the only way to defeat this enemy is to fight hard with every piece of ammunition you can find. You cannot defeat this enemy if you are not properly armed with the correct weapon and the correct weapon to defeat fear is the Truth. You defeat fear by wielding the weapon of Truth. In the case of small fears like that morning, it just takes a small dose of truth.
The truth of knowing nothing was in the room and that the dollhouse was not in fact possessed, instantly took away my fear. Truth dispels fear more rapidly than anything else can. This also works on big fears. However, the bigger the fear the bigger the Truth you will need. In order to fight against the fear I have battled in my life, I had to learn to arm myself with a great many Truths to fight with. And as always, the only real Truth is found in the Word of God. The best weapon at our disposal is the Word of God, so it is there that I went to arm myself with the Truth I needed to fight. I armed myself by finding as many verses as I could that would help me overcome my fears.
I wrote those verses down in a journal and began to read them out loud at least once a day and more than that if I was really struggling that day. I read those verses over and over. I grabbed that journal and read those verses like I was taking a much-needed medication and in fact, I believe that is exactly what I was doing. Psalm 107:20 says, “He sent forth His Word and healed them and delivered them from their destruction” and I believe that is exactly what God did for me. He used His Word to heal me and deliver me from my fears. In fact, He is still doing that very thing for me. My friend, I recently had a struggle in which fear made an ugly reappearance.
I cannot begin to explain to you how grateful I was when the verses I had learned to combat fear began popping up in my mind as I found myself once again struggling with the ugliness of fear and anxiety. In those moments when I woke with panic already threatening to strangle me before I could even get out of the bed, I was so grateful when the Holy Spirit began to remind me of the verses that once more calmed my worried mind. The Word of God is powerful indeed and I was reminded just how powerful it was as God used it to calm me down when anxiety tried to overwhelm me. I for one am so very, very grateful for the Word of God and the power it contains.
The Word of God is powerful enough to help you overcome whatever enemy you may be battling. “For the Word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of thoughts and intents of the heart” Hebrews 4:12. This two-edged sword is powerful enough to wield victory over every area of your life. It is the power you need to fight and win every battle you find yourself entrenched in against every enemy you face. If you are not taking at least a little time every day to read this Word, you are doing yourself a great disservice, my friend.
The only way to arm yourself is to read this powerful Weapon and store it as ammunition against the enemy. The words of this Book bring life and healing and hope and victory. The words of this Book have the power to transform your life. I do not speak of this lightly but as one who has experienced its transforming power in her life. God’s Word can truly change your life. Whatever you may be battling, my friend, I assure you that there is help for you in His Word. Whatever you are struggling with, I assure you there is hope for you in His Word. I urge you, dear one, to see for yourself the power to be found in His Word. I urge you to seek for the help you need in its covers.
I challenge you to diligently search His Word for the Scriptures you need as ammunition in the battles you face. Search for Scriptures that are relevant to your specific battle and begin to use them as your ammunition, as your medication, whatever your need may be use them to fight your battle and see how God will begin to move for you. God promises in Isaiah 55:11, “So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” God’s Word changes things and gets things done. If you determine to diligently apply the Word to your situation, you will begin to see God at work in your situation.
I’m not saying that God’s Word fixes everything for you because that’s not always the way it works. God’s Word can and very often does change situations but sometimes it doesn’t change the situation. Sometime it changes you. God’s Word has indeed helped me to make significant strides in overcoming my fear, but it has not taken away all of my fears. Sometimes God doesn’t take away the hard things; sometimes He just better equips us to walk through them. I cringe now even as I type these words because I know that you don’t like them anymore than I do, but I must speak truth and the truth is that sometimes God uses the difficulties to make us more like Him.
Many times we wish that God would just remove certain problems from our lives without realizing that He is trying to use those very problems to mold us and shape us into His image. We cry out for relief from the very thing He is using to make us into something more beautiful than we were before. We don’t like to think about it much less talk about it, but the truth is that suffering often brings out the delicate beauty that we never realized was buried deep inside us. We don’t want to think about it, but very often those trials we wish to run away from are in fact necessary to draw us closer to Him. I don’t enjoy battling fear and anxiety, but God has used them to teach me so much.
By teaching me to cling to Him for the strength I needed to overcome the fear and anxiety, God has shown me that He is more than able to take care of me. When I lost everything and had nowhere to run but to Him, He showed me that He was the only thing I ever needed in the first place. When my heart was broken and my tears flowed like a river from my eyes, He showed me that “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds” (Psalm 147:3). With every difficulty I have faced, I have begged for and longed for relief but God has used each and every one of them to teach me and slowly but surely mold me more into the woman He created me to be.
No, I still don’t like problems, trials, and difficulties, but I am learning that God uses the very things I instinctively want to run from to help me be more like Him. If I will but learn to submit more quickly to His gentle molding, I will find the difficulty not quite so hard to bear as I learn to look for His hand in the difficulty. It’s not always easy and the truth is that I still have a very long way to go, but praise be to God, I am not where I used to be. Slowly and ever so surely God has used the problems in my life to teach me a few things. Sometimes I am a slow learner, but thankfully, my beloved Father is ever so patient and doesn’t give up on me. He just keeps on chipping away at the unnecessary parts.
And someday, someday, my friend, I will finally start to resemble a lot more clearly “the One I love” (Song of Sol. 3:4) and that is a day that I can’t wait to see. I can’t wait until the day I finally see Him face to face and He completes the work He has begun in me (Phil. 1:6) so that I will finally, at last, truly honor Him. Until that day, I must “continue in the faith” (Col. 1:23) and do all that I can to daily “fight the good fight” (2 Tim. 4:7) and do my best to please Him. And I know that the key to all of this is to be diligent to read, study, and apply His Word to my life. I must make His Word as important to me as the food I eat because it is in fact that important.
I have shared before how Jesus actually says in John 4:34 that, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent me.” Oh that we could learn to be that satisfied by doing God’s will. And studying Scripture is in fact part of God’s will for His people. God commanded in Joshua 1:8 that, “This Book of Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.” According to God, the way to prosperity and success is found by meditating on His Word day and night and then actually doing what it says.
There you have it, dear heart. The true secret to a successful life is found by diving deeply into the Word of God and then living it out in your daily life. If you do this then, my friend, you will be well on your way to truly pleasing God and overcoming every obstacle the enemy tries to throw in your path to cause you to stumble. Unfortunately, we all know that it doesn’t matter how great of a man or woman of God you may be, you can still be made to stumble. The only way to not stumble is to stay in the Word and do your best to live the Word out in your daily walk with Him. Stay as close to Him as you can possibly get and the enemy will have a hard time indeed trying to cause you to stumble.
When I started writing this, like always, I had no idea where exactly God would lead me, I just felt compelled to write. The more I wrote, the more I felt Him speaking to my heart until my fingers were practically flying across the keyboard. I love it when He speaks to my heart like this because even if it wasn’t meant for anyone else, it was truth that I needed to hear. I think we all need to be frequently reminded that God does care and that His Word is the answer we are seeking. So as I finally come to the end of my story and my fingers begin to slow in their path across the keyboard, there is a prayer in my heart for you, my dear friend, and it is that prayer that I leave with you along with my love today.
Dear Father,
I pray that You will bless each and every person that reads these words, not only today, but any time they come across these words I have shared here. I pray that You will ignite within them a passion and hunger for Your Word stronger than any they have ever had before. I pray that as they begin to delve more deeply into Your Word that Your Holy Spirit will speak to them and teach them. Reveal truth to them and teach them more about who You are. Help them to find the answers they seek within the pages of Your Love Letter to us Your beloved children. Call them back to Your Word with the start of each new day. May they find healing within its pages as they draw closer to You, Jehovah Rophe. Give them a stronger desire to seek Your face and help them to want to spend more time in Your presence.
I pray that today would be the start of a brand-new walk with You, Lord. No matter how long or how short they may have been walking with You, may today be the start of a new love affair with You. I pray, Lord, that today and each and every day that follows, they will fall more and more in love with You. May You reveal Yourself to them in ways You never have before as they draw closer and closer to You. May they behold in You a beauty they have never known before. Be God in their lives as they learn to look to You to meet their every need. May all that they do be pleasing to You as they seek to do Your will and obey You in all their ways. Let the words of their mouth and the meditations of their hearts truly be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord (Ps. 19:14). Draw them closer to You, Lord I pray. –Amen
Grace and peace,
Katrina Douglas
