Adam Hamilton - Living Unafraid: Lessons on Hope from 31 of the Bibles Most Loved Stories

Our capacity to experience fear is a gift from God. Fear protects us from harm by preparing us to respond to perceived dangers or threats.

Often called the fight-or-flight mechanism, this threat-detection system is always switched on. And while it can be a gift that saves us when were facing real danger, it often imagines a crisis where there is none or amplifies a minor threat to make it seem more serious or frightening than it really is. We worry about the future, about our health, about disappointing our friends and family. When these worries play over and over in our minds without resolution, it can rob us of life or keep us from doing things that would be life-giving.

Making matters worse, we are constantly bombarded with messages aimed at taking advantage of our fears. Politicians use fear to garner support for their candidacy or actions. Marketers can use fear to lead us to purchase their products. Twenty-four-hour news keeps us constantly aware of the most disconcerting things happening in the farthest corners of the world. Social media can leave us feeling anxious about our relationships or fearful that were missing out, falling behind, or failing in life.

In my book Unafraid: Living with Courage and Hope in Uncertain Times, I discuss in detail why we fear the things we fear, and I offer ways we can press through the worries that most of us will face from time to time. I encourage the reader of this devotional to take a look at that book to delve into the causes of our fears and discover techniques for overcoming them. In that book, I used an acronym to outline four classic steps we can take to overcoming our fears:

Face your fears with a bias of hope.

Examine your fear-inducing assumptions in light of the facts.

Attack your anxieties with action.

Release your cares to God.

Long before people turned to therapists and medications for help with the things that made them anxious, they found peace and strength in their faith. The Bible records the experiences and reflections of those who trusted that God was with them, prayed for Gods help, and found hope in God in the face of adversity and some of lifes most frightening situations.

This thirty-one-day devotional is a companion to Unafraid. In it, Ill take you through many of the Bibles best-loved passages, exploring stories of people living with courage in the face of fear. After the first days reading from Psalm 23, the daily readings start with the creation story in Genesis and progress through the entirety of scripture, concluding with the final chapters of Revelation.

Fear is a persistent topic in the Bible, mentioned more than four hundred times in one form or another. Over one hundred times the Bible tells us, Dont be afraid. My hope in exploring these passages is to help you find hope, peace, and courage by realizing that if you struggle with fear, you are not alone; God is with you.

These daily readings are intentionally brief, in the hope that you might read them with a cup of coffee in the morning or as you lie down to sleep at night. My prayer is that in reading these devotions, youll find help in releasing your cares to God, and that in doing this, you will experience comfort and peace.

Finally, a word about the real-life stories that appear in these devotionals. All are based on the actual experiences of people I have known and ministered with, though in most cases Ive intentionally changed some details so that the individuals cannot be identified. In a few cases the stories involve a composite character, reflecting the experiences of several people with whom Ive walked through similar circumstances.

Adam Hamilton

Spring 2019