The car stopped in front of me at a stop light had two decals in the back window. On the Drivers side I read "Inhale Courage." On the Passenger side I read, "Exhale Fear." That was two days ago and I'm still thinking about those two statements.
Over and over in Scripture we are called to trust God and "fear not." Long before Nike made popular the phrase, "No Fear," God had already driven into the hearts and minds of His people the incredible insight of trusting God so much that fear would be tossed out of their lives. After all, God is love and “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear” (I John 4:18, NASB). God is not about fear and the bondages fear creates. God is about life and freedom and renewal and transformation and renewal. God doesn’t tie people up in the dungeons of despair. Jesus said He came that people might have life and have it to the full.
God is getting bad press coverage these days and that’s sad; sad on so many levels. We human being need hope and dreams and belief; the very realities God builds into people who trust in Him. People who have tasted God’s amazing grace are blessed beyond their capacity to fully experience or explain. God’s love and grace are so vast that they are simply to be received. We try to explain them but our words far short.
Ten centuries ago Meir Ben Isaac Nehorai wrote words that resonate even today when we don’t think much about parchments and scrolls and quills. He wrote,
Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made;
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade;
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.
And were the skies of parchment made;
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade;
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.
God’s love rocks the world of everyone who dares receive it. God’s love has been known to change the trajectory of a human life, turn people of anger into people of peace, and to enter into spheres of desperation and to create hope where there seemed to be no hope. In the places and people of fear God’s love has shouted, “Inhale courage and exhale fear.” The life-transforming words of Jesus call out to all of us, “Come to Me…and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:29), “In Me you…have peace…take courage; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33), “My peace I give to you…Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful” (John 14:27).
Inhale courage … Exhale fear. Take the grace and be filled with the love of God. After all, “God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline” (2 Timothy 1:7). God is with us and our times are in His hands (Psalm 31:14-15). Take the grace and live. Take the grace and do not fear. Take the grace and let it become courage in you.
