A Matter Of Interpretation

A Matter of Interpretation

The eternal God is your refuge, and his everlasting arms are under you.

Deuteronomy 33:27

Pastor and author Charles Stanley tells about camping in the Canadian Rockies one night. During the night he awoke to find himself pinned down by a heavy weight. A bear, he thought, lying on top of me! Terrified, he lay perfectly still. After a while, hearing nothing and feeling only the heavy, immovable weight pressing down on him, he struggled out from under it.

Standing outside his tent, he realized that there had been no ravenous bear, only six inches of wet snow that had fallen during the night, causing the tent to collapse. Then he remembered—the previous day he had asked God for snow. An avid photographer, he knew that snow would provide a striking contrast to the rugged terrain of mountains and trees, especially if the view could be captured on black-and-white film.^a Ironically, it was the answer to his prayer that had terrified him.

Stanley uses this experience to point out that the way we view life determines our response to it. Fear will color our response to everything. If, for instance, we think we are going to fail in a particular job, we probably will. Or if we think people won’t like us, we will behave in ways that discourage positive relationships. Furthermore, if we think God doesn’t care about us or doesn’t want to help us, it will be very difficult to receive his help because we will be too busy focusing on our own challenges and difficulties.

The way to peace involves rejecting fear in favor of embracing the story God has already told us—that he is a good and loving Father who will provide for his children. And that underneath us, in every situation, are his everlasting arms.

Lord, sometimes I am afraid of my own shadow. Help me to overcome fear, not by trying to convince myself that the world is without danger, but by trusting that I am never without your help.

^a The story is told in Charles Stanley, Finding Peace: God’s Promise of a Life Free from Regret, Anxiety, and Fear (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2003), 72–73.