“They will have no fear of bad news;
their hearts are steadfast, trusting in the LORD.
Their hearts are secure, they will have no fear…” Psalm 112:7-8
This is a verse that my wife and I have exchanged for a few weeks. We’ve texted it to each other while going about our work. A reminder of spiritual peace—words we trust that God will use at a critical juncture of the other’s day. By now we should have it memorized—and I suppose we do know the words—but how long does it take a verse like this to settle into the tides of life’s daily suspense?
Like most people, we sense the lack of control at the fringes of our lives; we try to apply some authority to the situations we can manage. We try to plan ahead. More so now since becoming parents, and the number and degree of our responsibilities has exploded. We already see potential catastrophe in every contour of our once-familiar house: sharp corners, choking hazards. There is a developing a fear of pillows. We maintain a careful and special anxiety for the things we can’t see. After all, it is flu season!
I read Psalm 112 and wonder what it feels like to have a secure heart. Security seems very distant in these final weeks of expectation, though we’ve surrounded ourselves with security, and I wonder if we’ve become addicted to safety. First-time parents, we might forgive ourselves. But, despite our repetitions of Psalm 112:7-8, we have to check ourselves to make sure we won’t take a step backward in our trust of God by putting our fears in the wrong place.
The “they” in Psalm 112 are people whose lives are outlined in verse 1: they are “those who fear the Lord, who find great delight in his commands.” There’s two kind of fears at work in this Psalm.
The first is the fear of the LORD, who is worthy to be praised, as it says in verse 1. This is a kind of fear that strengthens us and our families: “Their children will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed” (112:2). This is a fear that is explained outright in the Psalm previous: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (111:10). It is a fear that provokes us to the keeping of God’s commands, one of which is to avoid the other type of fear: which is fear of anything else, any earthly thing, and amounts to a lack of trust.
At my wife’s ultrasound appointments, I stared up at the screen, able to see these amazing images and unable to fully decipher them. I found myself waiting for bad news: possible quirks of development, signs I couldn’t read that might make doctors frown and look again.
In these moments, I believe I’d lost my fear of God—of what he was doing, of the new life he was creating that should have filled me with an awe not shared by any other sentiment. Had my fear instead been this God-awe, this would have been the beginning of wisdom. One fear chosen in favor of another: the fear of God that buries other, lesser, earthly fears. The Message uses the word “unperturbed” in its interpretation of God’s people in Psalm 112.
“Heart ready, trusting in GOD,
Spirit firm, unperturbed…”
Though I have Psalm 112:7-8 pretty well stamped into my brain by now, it takes a lot more work to live like I truly know it. To have a steadfast heart and a trust in our God that is final. It is part of a Christian’s work: to choose fear of him over fear of everything else. It was when God led his people into a promised land already occupied by stronger foes. It is now, in the midst of pervasive and unsettling news and in the midst of exciting life changes. And many of us have to relearn this lesson every day. It’s a lesson that’s worth relearning every day.