(1) The Lord is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid?
2 When the wicked came against me To eat up my flesh, My enemies and foes, They stumbled and fell.
3 Though an army may encamp against me, My heart shall not fear; Though war should rise against me, In this I will be confident.
4 One thing I have desired of the Lord, That will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord All the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the Lord, And to inquire in His temple.
We can choose to allow fear to paralyze us or depend on the Spirit of God to empower us. We can be confident in His love and His abiding presence and realize that He is there, He lives in our hearts, and He gives strength to overcome the power of the enemy. When we are tempted with fear, we can respond in faith - believing His Word as we study and meditate on it, calling out to Him in our times of fear, and allow Him to gives us boldness, courage, and love.
This character study I will share can help us to think on this passage of Scripture - it's about a doctor
motivated by the compassion of Christ. 1st John chapter 4 says:
16 And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.
17 Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world.
18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.
It was five years ago today, and a doctor woke up not feeling well. Three days later, it was confirmed that he had contracted a deadly virus. Less than a week later, he ended up at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta for treatment. Three weeks after that, he was exiting the hospital proclaiming, “Today is a miraculous day,” adding, “I’m thrilled to be alive, to be well and to be reunited with my family. … God saved my life, a direct answer to thousands and thousands of prayers.”
That's according to the Christian Chronicle. Bobby Ross, Jr. of that website has a story that was published at ReligionNews.com about that doctor. His name is Kent Brantly. He became ill while attempting to minister to those afflicted by the Ebola virus in West Africa. The article says that "From 2014 to 2016, the Ebola outbreak in West Africa claimed 11,325 lives, according to the World Health Organization."
Brantly became quite well-known and used the platform to call attention to the plight of the suffering.
Now, five years later, he is headed back to Africa for a new mission. According to the article, recently, "Brantly got a call from Dr. Lance Plyler, director of World Medical Mission, the medical arm of the evangelical humanitarian aid organization Samaritan’s Purse." He was "calling to see if Brantly and his cousin Dr. Stephen Snell — who had talked and dreamed for years about their families serving as medical missionaries together — might move to Zambia."
As Ross puts it, Brantly is "...grateful to God for saving his life. That gratitude inspires him to 'live a life that is faithful to the calling he’s given me.'" The story continues:
You can see life as a story, with a series of chapters. And, we can allow God to open new chapters of our lives - doing new things may bring a sense of apprehension, but overall, we can possess an attitude of anticipation regarding what He will do. We can look to Him to put us in the right place where He can use us and express His power through us.
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This character study I will share can help us to think on this passage of Scripture - it's about a doctor
motivated by the compassion of Christ. 1st John chapter 4 says:
16 And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.
17 Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world.
18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.
It was five years ago today, and a doctor woke up not feeling well. Three days later, it was confirmed that he had contracted a deadly virus. Less than a week later, he ended up at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta for treatment. Three weeks after that, he was exiting the hospital proclaiming, “Today is a miraculous day,” adding, “I’m thrilled to be alive, to be well and to be reunited with my family. … God saved my life, a direct answer to thousands and thousands of prayers.”
That's according to the Christian Chronicle. Bobby Ross, Jr. of that website has a story that was published at ReligionNews.com about that doctor. His name is Kent Brantly. He became ill while attempting to minister to those afflicted by the Ebola virus in West Africa. The article says that "From 2014 to 2016, the Ebola outbreak in West Africa claimed 11,325 lives, according to the World Health Organization."
Brantly became quite well-known and used the platform to call attention to the plight of the suffering.
Now, five years later, he is headed back to Africa for a new mission. According to the article, recently, "Brantly got a call from Dr. Lance Plyler, director of World Medical Mission, the medical arm of the evangelical humanitarian aid organization Samaritan’s Purse." He was "calling to see if Brantly and his cousin Dr. Stephen Snell — who had talked and dreamed for years about their families serving as medical missionaries together — might move to Zambia."
The article says:
Plyler cited a need for doctors at Mukinge Mission Hospital, a 200-bed facility in a rural area about 100 miles from the nearest supermarket. It’s about three hours from Zambia’s border with Congo.The Brantlys and Snells will be serving with Christian Health Service Corps.
“Right now, I think that means moving my family to Zambia to serve at a Christian mission hospital — to serve the poor and have compassion for the people in need and to participate in God’s work of making all things new and fixing the broken things in this world,” he said, not stopping to take a breath as he listed more and more reasons.A follow-up article at the Christian Chronicle addresses a new outbreak of Ebola - in Congo, which shares a border with Zambia. Brantly says:
There’s no Ebola in Zambia right now. There is the second-worst outbreak in history, ongoing, in the northeastern part of Congo that was first identified last August. It’s been going on for 10 months. There have been over 1,500 deaths and over 2000 cases, and it’s spread across the border into Uganda, and there were some cases in Uganda.He summarizes his attitude: "It’s not a matter of not fearing. It’s a matter of choosing to have compassion despite fear." He says, "...it’s not a fear in the front of my mind as we head to Zambia. But would I have fear if I found myself in the midst of another Ebola outbreak? You betcha. Yeah. Yeah, I would." Brantly adds:
Would I choose to stay and help and take care of patients again? I hope so. Would I try to be wise about how my family navigates that situation and prevent my wife and children from unnecessary risks? Yeah, I hope so.Brantly's story was told in a movie called, Facing Darkness, released by Samaritan's Purse back in 2017. The organization's website states:
“I think the message of this movie is really important because it is so much bigger than Ebola,” said Dr. Brantly in a recent interview at Samaritan’s Purse headquarters in Boone, North Carolina. “It’s a message that our country and the church needs to hear right now: to act out of love instead of reacting out of fear. It doesn’t mean you don’t feel afraid but you choose to act out of love anyway.”Fear is a force that we all face - it may come in a variety of forms, but our choice as believers in Christ is what to do with it. We can allow fear to consume us, or we can use the spiritual resources that we have in Christ to enable us to overcome it. And, the Bible tells us that "perfect love casts out fear." As Dr. Brantly puts it, "It’s a matter of choosing to have compassion despite fear."
You can see life as a story, with a series of chapters. And, we can allow God to open new chapters of our lives - doing new things may bring a sense of apprehension, but overall, we can possess an attitude of anticipation regarding what He will do. We can look to Him to put us in the right place where He can use us and express His power through us.
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