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Aug 26, 2022 18:30pm

Do Not Fear

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I was in the 5th grade and had gone to my friend LeeAnn’s house to spend the night. She lived just up the gravel road at the highway. We decided to ride bikes, something I was confident in. I had a bike at home I had gotten for Christmas a few years earlier. I rode that thing all the time. It was brightly colored with bright pink and purple across the metal.

We grabbed two bikes and headed out past the grain bins.

The one I had grabbed looked quite different than the one I was used to. It had a long, banana looking seat and the handlebars were shaped far different. To get out onto the road that ran by her house, we had to go down a hill and turn right.

I pumped those pedals and was flying across the drive like an old pro. As I came down the hill, I grabbed the handle bars to apply the brakes just a tad and realized, there were no brakes. Panic set in as I looked ahead. In front of me was a ditch with a barbed wire fence. Beneath me was a gravel road. It was on or the other.

I slid, for what felt like hours, on my left side down that gravel hill. LeeAnn rushed back to help me and took me back to her mom. As they cleaned me up, they talked about how on those older bicycles, the brakes were applied by the pedals, not the handlebars.

It took months to heal from that slide and I’ve still got the scars to show for it. When my knee was finally closed up, I would just stare at my bike as if it were my worst enemy. There was no way I was getting back on that thing.

“Fear not, neither be thou dismayed.” (Joshua 8:1)

These were the words the Lord spoke to Joshua as he prepared the leader to go back into battle against Ai. Their sin had cost them the battle before. Men died and their reputation had been tarnished. Now they would be known to the people of Ai as ones that will flee or run from them.

So how could this be true? How could Joshua really believe in that statement to not be fearful or terrified of what was ahead?

Because the Lord was with them.

They had confessed their sin and removed the man who had brought the anger of the Lord on them.

But it was time to get back up and try again.

I don’t know where you are, what you’ve done, where you’ve been, who you’ve been, but know this, don’t give up.

Is it time for you to rid your life of sin? Confess it to the Lord and repent. Turn from that sin and turn to Him. And then, get back on the bike. Try again. Don’t give up. The Lord says, do not fear, neither be thou dismayed.

He is with you. He is faithful and just to forgive when we come before Him with a humble heart and desire to be freed from the bondage of sin.

Trust in Him!