How many times have you needed reassurance? Can you count them? Do you want reassurance nearly every day? Do you need it in your job? Do you need it in your relationships? Do you need it to overcome fear? Have you turned to the One who can give it?
Reassurance is great to have. Often, we simply want to know we are not alone. We desire to have someone going down the same path along with us. There is comfort in two parties traveling together. We feel safe. We experience companionship.
Fear can be a motivator and it can immobilize us. But more often than we would like to admit, fear stops us from moving forward. Whether it is a fear of failing or the fear of dying, we stop us or cause us to find a different, less fearful way. We even suffer from imagined fear. We allow imagined fear to manifest on false pretenses.
But Jesus tells us not to fear. We are to believe. Though He said on multiple occasions for a variety of reasons, today’s passage is said to a father whose daughter was sick and had died. Everyone around him was filling him with fear, but Jesus told him not to fear, just believe that his daughter was going to be alright.
What does that mean for us? Most of us have no expectation for Jesus to show up and raise a loved one from the dead. Perhaps we should. Perhaps we should believe Jesus can do absolutely anything. After all, He can! Rather than fighting a battle on our own, we should call Jesus into the battle. We should set aside our fear and turn it over to Jesus.
I pray we all believe Jesus can do anything. I pray we give our fear. I pray each one of us will call Jesus into whatever situation we find ourselves in that causes us to fear and turn it over to Him. Believe in Jesus. Turn your fear over to Him. Know Jesus can do anything.
Mark 5:36 But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.”
Marty Pressey 