"Tremble and do not sin; when you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent. Selah" - Psalm 4:4 NIV (Selah is dropped in the translation)
The tremble in this verse is a Hebrew word that means an emotional shaking that can be a result of anger or fear.
I believe it was Lysa TerKeurst who wrote that "we can fear, but not live afraid. We can be angry, but not live angry." I don't quite remember how the quote went, but I remember it had this basic idea: you can feel this emotion, but not live by this emotion.
I have struggled a lot with emotions. I have tried to stuff them down, change them, and numb them, but nothing works, I still feel them. I thought that if I stopped feeling these things, then I would not struggle with these things.
But now I am learning how emotions are good. God has emotions and He designed us with emotions since we are His reflections He gives us the things He has so they can be represented in us. One of the things He gave us was His emotions.
This includes fear and anger.
I don't think anything can scare God, but at the end of Genesis chapter 3 God banished Adam and Eve to ensure they cannot eat of the tree of life. In a way I wonder if this was a holy fear of God that prompted Him to act in the best way.
Because that is what fear is: a warning that if we don't do something, something bad will happen.
If God did not banish Adam and Eve they would have eaten of the tree of life and lived forever - and that in sin. And that was not what God wants. So His fear drove Him to action. Not because He was terrified, but because He had that emotion that made Him aware that an action needed to take place. And God is perfect so His reaction was perfect.
God has blessed us with fear too. Which is odd to think of fear as a blessing. To me, fear has always led to a reaction to hide within myself and remain silent, to freeze in terror, or go along with whatever someone else wants in order to protect myself.
But fear is a blessing, because when we see a bear we know to run in the opposite direction or else we are lunch - or at least dead.
However, sometimes the correct reaction to fear is difficult to see because we are fallen and broken, we sometimes fear things we shouldn't and we sometimes respond in ways we shouldn't.
A fear of mine is that I cannot get my hands clean. There have been times where it doesn't matter how many times I wash them, I cannot get over that fear of being dirty and contaminating something else as soon as I touch it. This is me having an inappropriate fear with a terrible response. It's also a symptom of a compulsion disorder. Another would be always double checking doors - which I do also - or triple checking the stove is off.
Another fear of mine is what other people think about what I write. Will they think it's foolish? Will they avoid me because now they know I believe that? Am I going against God's truth? Did I research what I wrote about enough (I never feel like I do or can)?
In some ways, this fear is healthy because it keeps me in check with God's truth. In this way the fear keeps me turning back to God and His word and ensuring I line up underneath Him and what He ultimately says is true. And also in making sure I am relaying my point clearly.
However, this fear can also be unhealthy because I start focusing more on what people think rather than on what God says. When my focus is on people, I lose all sight of God and truth and everything and anything I may try to write becomes distorted in my thinking.
Here in Psalm 4:4 we are told to "Tremble and do not sin." Tremble. Go ahead and tremble. We can recognize we are afraid. We can recognize we are angry. Our emotions are good because they inform us of something that has to be addressed. However, emotions also have to be held back by boundaries, they are not to hijack our life.
Because that second phrase has an important word in it: not. "And do not sin.” Once we recognize the emotion we are feeling, we have a choice. Will we, 1. jump on whatever rollercoaster these emotions take us on, or 2. surrender this emotion to God to help us know how to respond?
For years I thought that if I felt something, I had to act upon it, so for a majority of my life I have been emotionally driven, and that led me into a downward spiral of depression and eventually a consideration of suicide.
But we do not have to let the fear dictate how we respond. I also fear people, and some people are harder to speak with than others. Just recently I started a new job, and the woman I will be working closely with has a personality that is completely opposite of mine and other people that I have known with that personality have just mowed right over me and squashed the life out of me. So my first reaction was fear, and to cave with that fear. After my first week working alongside her and discussing only the necessities, I finally built up enough courage to get the truth of my struggle with her out in the open.
Fear in this case, though it was trying to protect me from getting hurt again as I had been in the past, kept me silent. However, the best response was not silence, it was to speak up. When I could finally admit my fear and speak about it, I found the conversation went much better and actually learned I compliment this woman in our work very well and the two of us will hopefully be able to become very good co-workers if not maybe someday friends.
So while we can recognize the fear, we do not need to live in fear.
Now, understanding what that meant, didn't come until this night as I was settling into my hotel room. I started to feel really jumpy as I was getting everything all set and turning off some of the lights, as though something was lurking in a corner or shadow somewhere and would just jump out at me.
I was starting to get tense and barely remembered something like this happened before and told whatever it was to leave, so I told it to leave in Jesus' name. Twice. Then I prayed and invited God into that place and asked Him to drive out the darkness and whatever was in this room. I sang a couple songs, turned back to Psalm 4:4 and looked at the list of "In Christ I Am" I have from my counselor and saw: "Phil. 4:7 Guarded by the peace of God," in the list.
I also remembered Isaiah 41:10 and how many times throughout the Bible God calls us not to fear. Not because the emotion is bad, but because He doesn't want us to respond in fear.
Maybe this means the fear doesn't leave, but our focus isn't on what we feel, but on who God is. For God tells us multiple times not to fear, and one reason not to fear is because God is with us. He goes before us and behind us:
"You have hedged me behind and before, And laid Your hand upon me." - Psalm 139:5 NKJV
Because God is our mighty fortress. The walls that surround and guard us, that cannot be shaken nor moved. He is our defense, our defender, the warrior who fights for us to protect us, our champion who has already won the war.
Therefore "in peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, LORD, make me dwell in safety" (Psalm 4:8).
And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. - Philippians 4:7
All Bible references are from the New International Version (NIV) unless noted otherwise.