“I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you.” (Isaiah 41:13)
My Bible concordance software helpfully tells me there are over 80 instances in Scripture in which God says to people “do not be afraid” and assures them of His presence and help. Those instances cover a huge range of circumstances. What an encouragement it is simply to sit and read through each and every one of these references. The varied situations cover fear of enemies, of disasters, of failures, of danger, of unknown futures, of death, of rejection, and more. We have all experienced the paralysis of fear at some time. What a difference it makes to hear God saying ‘do not be afraid. I am with you. I will help you.’
The Olympic and Paralympic world continues to provide me with ideas for school assemblies, children’s addresses and sermon illustrations. This week I was reminded of the story of Esther Ledecká, the Czech snowboarder who won two gold medals at the 2018 Winter Olympics. Her main event was snowboarding. She took the gold medal on the Giant Slalom snowboard course. She also enjoyed downhill skiing but had never won any medals in that event and was ranked 49th. But she had the opportunity to enter the Super-G alpine skiing event. Despite the fear of ridicule and embarrassment she decided to take part “purely for the practice”, she said. She didn’t even have any skis. She borrowed a pair from a friend, Mikaela Schiffrin.
Crucially, her snowboard coach, Justin Reiter, believed she could do it. To encourage her to overcome any fear and give it a go, he turned up wearing his official Czech Team jacket. The jackets had been made reversible with gold colouring on the inside. If and when any Czech athlete won gold, the whole team could turn their jackets inside out to show gold. Justin had already turned his jacket gold side out before Esther even started her run. His way of saying: ‘Don’t be afraid. You can do this. I’m with you on this!’ To Esther’s own astonishment she came in first, beating the defending gold medallist by 0.01 of a second.
OK. I’m not guaranteeing we’ll come out unscathed and with a gold medal every time we are in a place of fear! But we’ll always know that our God is with us. And we will always know that He believes we’ll overcome and get through it. Don’t be afraid. Push on. Give it a go. And here’s another thought: who needs to see you believe in them? Who can you encourage to push through fear?