Psalms 27:1

.....the Lord is the strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid."

Fear

That four letter word can render a mighty giant to a nymph/weakling, and a Christian to a sadist or a diviner. Guess what made Saul to consult a diviner? It's mr. fear.

So what is this fear

Fear, we are told is a dark shadow that envelops us and ultimately imprisons us within ourselves. If I should add my words, I would say that fear is a product of the mind. It's a state of the mindset. It's not a person, place, animal but merely a thing. Did you get that? Yes, you heard me right, it's just a thing.

Remember the story of Jesus and His disciples in the Sea of Galilee as recorded in Mark Gospel 4:38-41? The storm in the sea was so frightening to the disciples that they forgot that Jesus - the Master was in the boat. In fact they were almost on the verge of laying accusations on Jesus for being indifferent about their safety in the boat.

Have you thought of what the disciples said to Jesus? They didn't cry out for help, at first they tried to display their master piece and and expertise to make Jesus know that they too knew a lot about sailing and how to maneuver through the storms without the help of the Master.

Nevertheless, when it was out of hand, they now remembered that there was a person who understood and knew better of whatever they thought they knew. Now watch this:

1. And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish? KJV.

New International Version
Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, "Teacher, don't you care if we drown?"

New Living Translation
Jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion. The disciples woke him up, shouting, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re going to drown?”

Now you would agree with me that from the above versions of that scripture. None of them actually proves that the disciples actually needed help from Jesus. They only asking question and not asking for help. Please carefully think through my thoughts cause I want you to understand what I am labouring to explain from that scripture.

As a grammarian, we have what is called grammatical and structural analysis of a sentence. If I should analyse the statement of those disciples, I would say that the were only make a statement or a rhetorical statement that's looking at it from the Literature perspective. The disciples were not specific in their request.

Don't know why they did that, but I could guess that it may have being because of fear that Jesus may not be able to save them from the storm. How do you mean? You would ask, the disciples's faith of what Christ could do was thrown off the balance of what they saw and thus forgot about their faith.

To me, I think that the best way to have asked for help from Jesus would have been for them to ask Him to help them rather than beat round the bush. Simple help sentences like.

Please save us Lord

Lord, we are drowning, please arise and calm the storm for our sake

or just

Save us Lord.

would have been enough.

But nay, they were rather engaging Jesus on a debate whether He was caring enough to save them from the storm. But thank God for Jesus, their doubt or unbelief couldn't hinder Him from saving them and glorifying His father in Heaven. How do I know this? Notice that the same disciples that refused coming out plain to ask for help declared after the storms was calm saying:

And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?

Before they made this statement among theselves, Jesus Himself had acknoldged in verse 40 that they had no faith, but fear.

Nugget

Fear is not Godly but ungodly
Fear is the absence of faith
Fear gives birth to doubt
Your human strength would always be put on test.
Your human strength cannot sustain you, it will always fail in the mist of adversity.

PRAYER

Father Lord, please help me to trust in you.
Lord extract every fear from my heart and replace it with faith.
Lord, teach me to look up to you for my help.
Father, be thou the strength of my life and my stronghold.

Happy weekend brethren.
Live a life of faith and not of fear. @vocab cares. God bless y'all.