#FEARLESS365 is a yearlong study of God’s commandment to us to live without fear. For 365 days, we will focus on one scripture and volunteers from all over the world will share their personal thoughts and what God has shared with them on the specific verse. For more info… go here.

This is what I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt. And my Spirit remains among you. Do not fear.’

Haggai 2:5

I have a lot of fears. With a vivid imagination like mine, it’s easy to concoct all kinds of dangerous situations that might arise from a seemingly harmless activity. I’ll spare you the details. So many times I forget the nature of God and who He is and what He promises. He doesn’t promise us that our lives will be easy or without struggle and sadness. But like the verse in Haggai, he promises that His spirit is with us. Just like the Israelites when they came out of Egypt. It was forty years of wandering, never knowing what dangers might befall or when they would reach the end. But they had a cloud by day and pillar of fire by night as a physical reminder that God was with them.

God made a promise to His people in the Old Testament, and He makes the same promise to us today. It was a covenant made to Eve in the garden of Eden, to Moses at the burning bush, and later to Abraham that God had chosen a remnant to be His people. A people who would fail and complain and forget God’s goodness. And yet He remained faithful. God brought his people out of slavery and hardships in Egypt. God preserved that people through the generations so that from them would come the very one who came to save them. Jesus. The God Man who opened the way for all to come to God.

We no longer have a physical reminder of God’s presence in the form of cloud, or fire, or God in the flesh, but we have something just as powerful: His word. I often forget that there is power in His written words. Power to drive away fear and live in the truth. Without this deep understanding of who God is and what He has done, I will remain in fear, just like the Israelites did. But when I remember the covenant He made so many generations ago, my fears start to dissolve. I no longer live under the darkness of my fear, but in the light of the promise that he will never leave me nor forsake me.

Anne Hockenberry is a part-time teacher, artist, blogger at birdsandberry.wordpress.com and Etsy shop owner at Etsy.com/shop/birdsandberrystudio who lives in Wyoming. She moved to Wyoming from North Carolina this summer and started building my blog and shop after teaching full time for 5 years.