“If you say in your heart, ‘These nations are greater than I. How can I dispossess them?’ you shall not be afraid of them but you shall remember what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt, the great trials that your eyes saw, the signs, the wonders, the mighty hand, and the outstretched arm, by which the LORD your God brought you out. So will the LORD your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid. Moreover, the LORD your God will send hornets among them, until those who are left and hide themselves from you are destroyed. You shall not be in dread of them, for the LORD your God is in your midst, a great and awesome God.” Deuteronomy 7:17–21
I hate going to the dentist… and I had to go to the dentist this week. I’ve been dreading it for weeks. I’ve been trying to convince my heart of something I said in Sunday’s sermon, that the Holy Spirit really is smack dab in the middle of every paragraph of my life. And that includes going to the dentist. And this was my prayer as I faced what I dreaded so much: “Holy Spirit, help me!”
And He did. (No surprise there, right?)
Dread is a powerful thing, isn’t it? It just moves in uninvited into our hearts and it makes itself at home. And suddenly we’re dreading things like work, that hard conversation that we know we need to have, seeing “that” person, the dentist, etc.
I love what Beth Moore says about dread:
“Dread is a person prophesying the unfaithfulness of God. Our dread is a false prophet saying ‘My God will not be faithful, there will not be enough grace for me to get by. I will not be able to get by in His strength.’…Dread rehearses a scenario without grace showing up…Dread is prophesying that God will not be faithful to me in any given situation that worries me.”
Dread is very normal experience in this fallen world. But that’s because we forget that the Holy Spirit is with us. My prayer for us at Grace is that we learn to stop listening to the false prophet of dread. May the Spirit help us to quit rehearsing scenarios where we think His grace won’t show up.
The Holy Spirit is waiting for you ahead of time in that situation that you dread. He’s already there in that conversation that you don’t want to have. He is smack dab in the middle of everything that you dread. Show up and trust Him.
Even though the Holy Spirit was with me this week, I still didn’t enjoy going to the dentist.
– Pastor Benji
AMAZING GREY CITY 