Fear and Anxiety - Pt. 1

 

So he stayed there that night, and from what he had with him he took a present for his brother Esau, two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, thirty milking camels and their calves, forty cows and ten bulls, twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys. These he handed over to his servants, every drove by itself, and said to his servants, “Pass on ahead of me and put a space between drove and drove.” He instructed the first, “When Esau my brother meets you and asks you, ‘To whom do you belong? Where are you going? And whose are these ahead of you?’ then you shall say, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob. They are a present sent to my lord Esau. And moreover, he is behind us.’” He likewise instructed the second and the third and all who followed the droves, “You shall say the same thing to Esau when you find him, and you shall say, ‘Moreover, your servant Jacob is behind us.’” For he thought, “I may appease him with the present that goes ahead of me, and afterward I shall see his face. Perhaps he will accept me.” So the present passed on ahead of him, and he himself stayed that night in the camp. (Genesis 32:13-21 ESV).

 

Fear can be a powerful force in our lives. James Frey wrote, “And loss of control is always the source of fear. It is also, however, always the source of change.” I have often taught this principle in helping people overcome anxiety and fear of the future. It is a matter of finding the control that you can have and trusting in the ultimate power that God has to bring good into your life. Our reading today illustrates this principle.

 

For much of his life, Jacob had tried to act as a person in control, someone who could figure his way out of any hard place. After he successfully navigated his recent awkward encounter with Laban, we might think he would have felt confident in his abilities. But now, as reports suggested that Esau, his brother, was coming to meet him with 400 men, then suggesting a small army, Jacob was terrified. What more could he do to save himself? For the first time, we hear him praying the desperate prayer of a man who knows he can do nothing apart from God’s help and power.

 

We often imagine that we have the resources to deal with any problem that might come our way. Perhaps we even say that we depend wholly on God’s power, but we so often live as if our efforts and our abilities are what really matter. When we face a situation we cannot control, we realize that we cannot rescue ourselves from our deepest fears. We cannot preserve our health. We cannot redeem our reputation. We cannot reconcile our broken relationships. We cannot save ourselves from our sin. We can depend only on the grace and power of God. That is the answer to fear and anxiety.