“You will not fear the terror of the night.”
Psalm 91:5
As a child there are plenty of things which scare in the night. It might be the strange creaking as the heating pipes grow cold, or the cry of a creature in the garden. Shouting in the street might upset, or the sound of crashing as a bin is knocked over.
As an adult, there are still things which frighten us in the night but they tend to come from inside rather than out. It is not creaking which scares, but the worries of life. The ‘what ifs’ and ‘why’ gather in our minds, as the past and future rush into the present.
But ‘you will not fear’! Why? Because the believer can know that God our Father is present, and even the thoughts of our minds are present to him. The loneliness of the night is but a phantasm, for God does not close his eyes. “Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep” (Psalm 121:4).
The antidote to fear is the recollection that God - our Father - is above all things and all things are in his hand. In Proverbs we are reminded that “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will” (Proverbs 21:1). Bring these worries to God, pour out your heart to him, and then trust him to act in the way that is best. Then “you will not fear the terror of the night”.
