Terrors in the Night
I sought the Lord, and He answered me, and delivered me from all my fears. Psalm 34:4 NASB
Fears – Have any of your really bad dreams turned out to be real? Do you sometimes feel as if you are living in a nightmare? Even a cursory look at human history will convince you that terrors are a lot more than psychosomatic. That’s why we need to know that this Hebrew word is not the usual one for “fear.” Usually we find yare, a word that runs the gamut from being afraid of things like lightning to awe and respect for the one true God. But here David chooses another word; a word that moves us out of the realm of those fears that have a specific object to something far more terrifying, that is, terror itself.
David chooses megurot. The root is gur which means “great dread, terror, horror.” This is more than worrying about tomorrow’s weather. This is a nightmare turned into a daylight trauma. Your worst fears coming true. Maybe you can handle the ordinary worries of life. Maybe you can rise to the occasion when something unexpected presents itself, but when it comes to terror, no one is really ready. Once in awhile we get an inkling of what might happen, and we know it would overwhelm us.
That’s why David turns these things over to God. He will deliver us from all those nightmares. Once again David chooses his word carefully. This is not a “salvation” word. Instead of yasha’, David uses the Hiphil perfect form of nasa’. Cognates demonstrate that the principal idea behind this word is to draw out or escape. This is physical deliverance, a rescue operation in the real world. The nightmare might have started in the psychological depths but God’s response comes in the daylight. While the word has spiritual overtones and connections, its home is in the physical reality of day-to-day living.
I have fears. I imagine you do too. Some fears are quite useful. I am afraid of getting burned so I pay close attention to hot things. But some things just scare me to death. Things like being afraid that in the end God won’t find me acceptable (yes, I know the theology but it doesn’t take away the terror). These things I have to give to God. That doesn’t mean, by the way, that they will suddenly evaporate from my life. It just means that I have confidence that He will rescue me, that when it comes to the terror in the night He will somehow find a way to pull me out, that I will wake up before I die in my dream.
David had some real enemies. Maybe you do too, but I suspect that the worst of all terrors come from deep inside of us. We are powerless over them because they reside in the darkest corners of our lives. They are megurot—and God is the only deliverer. Perhaps you and I need to fall on our faces and ask God to deliver us from our real terrors, the ones that arise from deep inside.
Topical Index: megurot, terror, fear, Psalm 34:4
Fear. False Evidence Appearing Real.
Fear was the fuel in my tank. Panic was what I used to wake myself up in the morning. Starting at about 3 AM, I would startle awake in a panic, and spend the next few hours reminding myself of all the reasons why I had to continue to carry the heavy load. I would be paralyzed, it was so bad. Finally, after exhausting the list of all the ‘reasons’ I had to be so afraid, I would summon up enough energy to move, and Go Do Something About It. The rest of the day I would spend outrunning those fears, only to fall into bed for another equally exhausting night that could not renew me because I could not summon enough trust to let any of it go. This was my life as a Chronic Fatigue victim. All 38 years of it. There was no night that I rested, no day in which I could start off in neutral. Stress was my slave driver, as well as the only gas station in my town. That is my testimony.
From here, this is His testimony. I was finally washed up, done for. There is so much grief a body can take before it collapses. Lying on the couch, able to get up only about one hour a day, trying to find a way to get my 5 children and myself through another day with no resources and no backup, I hit the bottom. It was at that precise time that the answers started showing up. Interesting. Not until I started asking a DIFFERENT QUESTION did they start to appear. Hmmm I realized that just continuing to go along with what I THOUGHT was the problem was not working. I could find no answer for why I THOUGHT it was the way it was. So a thought came to me as if it were my own (I am quite sure it was not, though!) and that thought said “why not try to find a new way to define the ‘problem?”
Well. That was the chink in which daylight started to appear. Looking back, I can see that, like Job, my worst fears were coming upon me. He was afraid for his grown children’s salvation (wouldn’t that be between THEM and God? As a parent of grown children, I am finding that to be the case, anyway. Job must have thought it was ALL UP TO HIM). They died. He apparently was afraid to lose ‘his’ wealth, ‘his’ status, and ‘his’ health. (He said that ALL his worst fears were coming true, didn’t he?) He watched it all go down the drain. He apparently thought that it was there because of ‘his’ righteousness. Hmmm I also thought that it was ‘I’ that had to stop the madness, slay the dragons and take the responsibility for the chaos. What I found was that ‘I’ was out of turn. Job saw that, too, at his bottom. His other friends assaulted him with the standard boiler plate theology of the day, which apparently he might have also at one time agreed with, only to find, at his bottom, that it was NOT FITTING, or working, when he needed it most. Only Eliphaz got it right. Job was suffering from self righteousness, and Eliphaz cracked him on the knuckles for it. He pointed out that God had not forsaken Job, but that Job had separated HIMSELF from God, and that HE needed to make the move back, instead of just hollering “come over here RIGHT NOW and save me from this unfairness in ‘my’ righteousness!” At that point, YHVH shows up and Job is ready to repent in dust and ashes. What is he repenting of? Thinking that it was up to him in the first place. Thinking that he was the source of ‘his’ righteousness. Well, ‘his’ righteousness could not protect him from the disaster, could it? Neither can ‘ours’.
I finally began to notice that I had a trust problem that stemmed from a heart that had been broken as a child. I was thinking it was ‘all up to me’ because, at my deepest bottom, I could not Let Go And Let God. I saw that I was not trusting God when He said that He loved me, so I thought I had something more I had to do before I could rest in His love and His promises for me. That drivenness and performance, that FEAR that somehow I was not ALREADY in the fold, was actually creating the reality of being OUTSIDE that fold. Just like Job, I was suffering from fear that was being based upon a bunch of very subtle lies that were in my heart because I was traveling on a broken heart that could not TRUST. (All fear is a lack of trust. That is what makes fear sin. There is no faith in fear, and I am told that whatsoever is not of faith is of sin.) To change my fear, I had to choose different things to believe, and the biggest ones had to do with re-setting the trust factor. I had to identify what was driving my fear, find the False Evidence that was Appearing so Real, and replace it with the truth. Finally, I had to learn how to tell Fear to take a hike because I was no longer in agreement with it. I had to learn to REPENT for the sin of being afraid. Hey! That is called repenting for the sin of STRESS! It worked! I got delivered of all my fears WHEN I REPENTED FOR THEM!!!! WOW!! The stress levels went back down, I entered into Rest, and the rest, they say, is now my His-story. Halleluah! He DOES deliver! Yes!
And now I am sitting back down. Shabbat Shalom to all!
Thanks for sharing a powerful testimony.
Hail, Favored One!
~ being afraid that in the end God won’t find me acceptable ~
Reality Check?
~ That we should be holy and without blame before Him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ [by Who?] to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He HAS [past tense] made us accepted in the Beloved ~
Hail, favored one! – The LORD is with YOU!!
The Greek word translated here “accepted in the beloved” is the exact same word rendered “highly favoured” in Luke 1:28. “And the angel [Gabriel] came in unto her, and said, ‘Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the LORD is with thee [Mary]: blessed art thou among women” (brackets mine). These are the only two times this word is used in the New Testament. Therefore, being “accepted in the beloved” means you are “highly favoured” of God!
Who are we?
Are we [now] the sons and daughters of our Father? Is it not a truly miraculous-wonderful-marvelous privilege to pray? – and to say “ABBA” – Father?
Is this “religion?” – Or is this [yes, in glorious reality], – “relationship?”
Just how does any man, any woman, anywhere.. made righteous in the sight of God? [Righteous- in right standing.. – in right-relationship.. “rightly related..”]
What was the purpose of the Tslav? [the execution stake]
Who did Christ [the Messiah] die for? In reality, [in flesh and blood] was He [no, is He] “the ONE?” – or shall we look for another?
Have we forgotten the announcement of the angel? “You shall call His Name [what?] – for He shall [what?] His (very) Name is Yeshua/Salvation!/Deliverer!
So let’s go on down to the Temple, and bring our sacrifices with us- for the Torah states: ~ without the shedding of blood, there is NO atonement for sin ~
So we bring our bulls and goats and sheep and (for those who are poor) a pair of turtledoves- all whose blood is to be offered upon the altar by the High Priest on Yom Kippur on the tenth day of Tishri.
Oh? What’s this?
~ But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year by year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Therefore, when He comes into the world, He says, “SACRIFICE AND OFFERING YOU HAVE NOT DESIRED, BUT A BODY YOU HAVE PREPARED FOR ME;.. ~ (Hebrews 10.3-5)
He [our High Priest] did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but He entered the Most Holy Place [once for all] BY HIS OWN BLOOD, thus obtaining eternal redemption.
Have you heard?
~ For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world,
but in order that the world might be saved through Him ~ (John 3.17)
Sweet Shalom! Abiding in the Messiah
~ I in them and You in Me–so that they may be brought to complete unity. [shalom] – Then the world will know that You sent Me and have loved them even as you have loved Me ~
When did He [ever] stop loving us?
Honest question but doesn’t the fear of not being accepted a legitimate one? I know that modern Christians are taught (so that would imply most of us at one point in time were taught) that you ‘believe in Jesus you are saved’. This once saved, always saved just falls apart for me when you read stuff like, “Matthew 18:21-35”. and hesed. We all will be put through the lake of fire but my impression is that what’s not of Him will be burned off. What’s left is things which reflect Him. So if you tend to suck at life (me) then wouldn’t that mean that you are just going to be burning for some long time? It’s not comforting and it feels hopeless when you have King David saying essentially I’m just happy if I’m a door man for your kingdom. Well if that’s the case, I think I can confidently says I should get use to the nose bleed section because I’m not gonna get to close.
I just have this impression that the more you know, the less, “slides”. As your walk develops your ‘battles’ become more refined but still get judged just as hard as the crude ones because it shows nothing to do something that has become ‘easy’ for you. Evil Inclination is evil inclination and will be judged the same; my impression at least.
It’s troubling to say at the least, sometimes I don’t think that He’s gonna save me and that I couldn’t blame Him either. Or when I read, ‘I never knew you’ I think that He’s talking to me more often then not. The more I learn the more I feel that I wouldn’t blame Him in a fair court of Law for not really wanting Him the kingdom. Do I still try? Ya of course. I try not because I’m expecting anything out of it though, I just know what He says is true and I’m just doing the best to follow what He says to do even if that just means at best I’m a ‘towel boy’ for Him. But do I think I have my foot in the door some how because I recognize that Yeshua is the Messiah; no I don’t think Yeshua is my ‘get out of jail free’ card. How is a blindness not on my eyes anything other then Him taking away that blindness? Everything I know is because of Him not my own doing, everything that I know but I fail to do it on me. I guess I’m fine with it..?
There are too many verses that are beyond humbling that make me feel this way. The only thing that gives me hope at the end is the book of Jonah and remembering that He has compassion for what He created and that He keeps His promises; otherwise all bets are off.
YHVH YHVH el rachum (Exodus 34:6) is the only reason for hope. You and me both.
I identify strongly with what was shared today. Laurita, I don’t remember much from my “childhood.” Here are a few lines from a poem I wrote:
What were we in a younger day?
What did we wear when we went to play?
Who saw the tears that silently fell
From too little heaven and too much hell?
The dreams were shattered one by one
More hope was crushed with each setting sun.
I also know the kind of childhood that leaves one with trust issues. Your testimony is very helpful. Thank you.
Skip, another of my poems has these lines:
Where could we run and where could we hide?
For the fiercest of enemies resided inside.
We kept looking without, while the source was within.
The blackest of enemies was our very own sin.
The hardest part for me is knowing that those who are trying to follow Torah and believe in Yeshua seem to have so much trouble “experiencing” the love of YHVH and/or loving others. Not too many people are asking me for reason for the hope that’s in me. That’s a problem. What’s the honest answer to, “How’s that working for you?” I’m trying to come to grips with my faulty foundation and the Greco/Roman decor of my house. The sea side views were lovely. When the sun was shining, it was hard to beat life on the beach. One major storm, though, convinced me to seek higher ground. Trying to build on the rock is a lot harder! I suppose I can’t expect to have the same kind of house. Sometimes it feels like I’m breaking rocks in the hot sun to try to build this house. Sometimes it feels like I fought the law and the law won. When people have been a long time in their sin (me), that produces real damage. I don’t know how to love Him. Most people embraced the love of YHVH; I could never dismiss the holiness. Is that only out of perfectionism/self righteousness because of trust issues? I admit that I have a hard time resting in His love. I don’t know if it helps, or just makes me sad, that others struggle so to experience the love of YHVH.
Theresa, please, please write more! All your poem lines resonated with me, and I think I need to hear a lot more of what you have to say! I know I couldn’t rest AT ALL until I was exhausted! Finally, finally, the subject became of interest to me. lol. I am finding I really know very little about love. Probably a large part of just the way you are loves Him, and you simply do not know it, for all you or I know! Keep the faith!
Thank you for the encouragement. If I said anything that helped YOU, that’s something!
I need all the help I can get!
I meant that with respect, but also with delight. Your words have encouraged me, challenged me, frustrated me, and ultimately caused me to search myself, my relationship with my Creator, and my interactions with others. Why would anyone want to travel this road if there wasn’t life and hope? You actually have helped me believe that more shalom is possible. Someone passed that on to you, you are passing it on to us, now I want to be able to pass it on to others when I’m wearing a garment of praise. That spirit of heaviness is really getting old!
You go, girl!
My son had horrible night terrors as a child. I prayed with him, bought him a night lite, sprayed special Monster-B-Gone spray and even speed away in our car once so as to out run them, but they always came back. That is till I taught him how to take control of his dreams. It took 3 nights, but he was finally able to stop running in his dreams from the monsters and face them with a kiss, actually he just pat them on the head (he was to scared to kiss them :)). The monster turned into a banana. SO!! you may ask how I came up with that one? I have lived through a few of my own night mares. Begging only for YHVH to awaken me or take me, but neither ever happens. I have cried out in pain with only guttural noises coming from my throat and tried to crawl away to whimper in the corner. I have stood naked and wounded, numb and cold and broken and scared. BUT, never truly alone. In the deepest nightmare YHVH has always been near and once the initial shock wears off I feel a sense of inner peace, HIS peace. As I said I have been through these more than once. A pastor once told me I was “chosen and blessed” don’t know about that but, I can empathies most of the time with those who are hurting around me. The little things do not phase me much and evil no longer sends me hiding under the bed. I am a survivor, and I will fight for life tooth and nail. YHVH has always walked with me, but I have always had to walk through it. Knees shaking and stomach turning one foot in front of the other, sometimes only by my shear stubbornness to not be a victim. So far all of the terrors have turned into bananas that give me strength to face the smaller trials or the next nightmare when it comes. I wish I could say I was unscarred but I can’t. I suffer from PTSD and have for years. Wish I did not have it, but I do, panic attacks suck. I should be depressed, suicidal and dead, but I am not. I have had nick names like smiley and angel. I have been told my “joy in the morning” is annoying to people before they have had their coffee and I sing too much. I love life I really do. I have however, become more cautious and try not to call attention to myself, I am now reserved, but I have joy, inner strength and I know that no matter what happens I will get through it with HIS help and my will. You would not know I had been through anything other than life if you met me and that is fine with me. After all singing and laughing are so much better than being stuck in fear. NEVER easy, but HE ALWAYS sees me through.
There are fears we face as we move on in this life; fears that I never had even when I was much younger. Fears that I never have to express to anyone then, though there were terrifying moments, but they vanish as quickly as they came, with not a chance to be retained, nor had a hold in my memory. Strange, but so thankful. That strength could have only come from ABBA.
This verse has four stages-sought, answered, delivered, after David confessed, acknowledged his fears and afflictions, and finally attesting his only trust and confidence was in YHWH:
The LORD/YHWH is close to the brokenhearted; He rescues those whose spirits are crushed.”
“The righteous person faces many troubles, but the LORD/YHWH comes to the rescue each time.” “David declares that the way to live long is to live honestly and thus to live in the fear of YHWH.”
Was that the discipline David had to face before prophecy came to pass for him to be the anointed king of Israel,just as Joseph had to go through the various trials?
Christina and Ester both, thank you. You both put into words what I have found and experienced. Christina, they say courage is not the absence of fear, but the facing of it. You are an amazing mom! I have had to learn how to turn my enemies and the monsters of my life back into humans and, if not friends, or someone I can sympathize with, at least bananas! LOL! That is what Love does. Ester, you hit the nail on the head for me when you quoted Skip “the way to live long is to live honestly and thus to live in the fear of YHVH”.
I went to bed last night and woke up with the same thought. It has to do with our modern, Western, if you will, view of pain. I was actually reading about the history of medicine. Before Hippocrates, all disease was viewed as a spiritual problem. It was not just the Hebrews who went first to the priests with a problem! I was also reading about how a lot of the rest of the world, even today, has a very different view about pain. They expect it with a problem; they expect to hurt, and mostly, do not seek to alleviate it so much, per se, as to live with it until they fix the problem. Hmm On the contrary, I think about today in this country where we even call fear a disease, and think of pain as an enemy. We medicate fear and pain both, but I can not find a Biblical precedent for that, frankly.
In the Bible, fear is treated as an enemy and taken to YHVH to be dealt with, and pain is taken as a side effect of a condition that needs to be addressed. Here, we take on fear in our own strength(!) and pain is the ENEMY. Oh, we battle that one on our own, too. But, I want to ask, what if we were to view fear as sin, and therefore NOT to be tackled without Him; in fact, the only thing I know to do with sin is to repent. Period. It is too dangerous for me to take on; in fact, I ALWAYS lost when I did! Fear, in fact, is a place where I cannot see the truth. That blindness is to be repented of, for it is being driven by false beliefs about love, specifically. That is what I have discovered about fear, and I have looked that hideous monster in the face for decades. I was schitzo and profoundly depressed, too, and have the distinction of entirely wiping OUT my entire adrenal system with it, too. Y’all, I was a fear PRO.
Pain. Tough subject. I am not going to tackle that one, here, except to suggest that as I have been learning to face my problems, including pain (that would be that HONESTY, that Skip is talking about, I think), and seeking FIRST the Kingdom in all things, I find myself more in the place where I am repenting for fear instead of living with it or fighting it on my own (laughable, y’all, I never won!), and pain means something new. Stop. Stop something. Go ask what to stop. But stop. Face the pain until I find what to stop. This is radically new for me. When I injured my shoulders (my current issue), I went and asked what I needed to stop. Right question! I then saw I was trying too hard because I was being bitter toward people in my life that I deemed were not trying hard enough; and also not respecting my body enough while I am asking it to do a new thing, which is to correct my posture, and I strained them. I have repented for both. Then I asked what to do. Well, I went and asked for help(!) and a friend of mine, a good therapist, is trading work with me to teach me how to stretch and take better care. I asked my body, too, and it said that when I did certain stretches, the pain stopped. Y’all, those stretches have been taking hours a day! BUT, I have not medicated the pain. I have used it as a diagnostic tool. Not only is it guiding me back out of the problem, I am learning how not to do it again.
Long story short, when I put YHVH first in the equation, and do not fight on my own, but use trust; trust in Him to send me only necessary things, and trust in what He shows me to do about them, and trust in myself to Shema Him and my body that He gave me both, then the pain quits. Until then, it is my teacher, to bring me to repentance; a place to turn around. Halleluah!