By Rev. Daniel Yaw

Introduction
Have you anything you fear in this life?  Today, there are all kinds of fear – fear of spiders, fear of cats, fear of the dark, fear of being alone, fear of sickness, fear of death, and others.  Fear seems to govern us a great deal in our lives.  How do we face those fears in our lives?

In Psalm 23:4, the psalmist touches on something so relevant today.  He said, “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil for you are with me.”

The Expectation:  Valleys in life.
Though most translations added valley of “death”, it is not there originally.  Yet the deep valley or dark valley does include death, being the ultimate fear that we have.

Valley is a place where corrosion happened between mountains.  It is also associated with something unpleasant and we often use the expression – “I am in the midst of a valley of troubles.”, meaning a certain kind of bad experience we have.

We all do.  None is excluded from this journey.  It is EXPECTED that all of us will have “valley” experiences thrown upon us.  Even as I write and when you are reading, you may be in some sort of a valley in your life’s journey.  Some have valleys of sickness, financial woes, family troubles, relationship crises, or even losses or death.  We can never avoid this “trouble” in life.  That is why the psalmist says that “Even though we walk through the darkest valley….”  However, it does not stop there.  In the valley, there is this common feeling called “fear”.  How do I handle that?

The Experience:  I fear no evil.
“I fear no evil.”  Is it a fearful thing to be in a valley?  After a prolonged time, the fear also increased.  Yet David said, “I fear no evil.” 

God cannot do evil. Even when you’re facing problems, conflict, grief, fear, or failure, God is at work creating some good from your valley.

Romans 5:3-5 says, “We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (ESV).

God is not evil and He cannot work evil.  If that be the case, there is only one option left – He does good!  Even from the “evil” that befalls us, He can turn it into something good.  “For all things worked out together for good, to those who love Him, who are called according to His name.”

The experience of fear is almost natural but faith is something supernatural that God has given us.  How can we experience faith?

The Encounter:  You are with me
“For You are with me.”, says David during the valley experiences.  That is the assurance and the reason for our “non-fear” or faith – because God is with me.

I remembered a story told of a young man who admired the faith of a senior and asked him, “Sir, you never seemed to be troubled in your life.  Don’t you have any problems or crises?”  His response was, “Well, I surely do but whenever I have to go through those experiences, I will always look up and cry, ‘Lord, your property is in danger.’”

How true, because we all belong to God and God has promised to be with us.  When our Lord Jesus was talking to his disciples about the impending trouble that would befall them, He said, “In this world, you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer because I have overcome the world.”  This overcomer, our Lord Jesus Christ, our good shepherd will be with us.

Conclusion
When I was reading the last book of the Bible in Revelation 21 which talks about the new heavens and the new earth, Jesus said, that it would be a place where God will dwell among us and He shall be our God.  In that place, there will be no more crying and no more death.  As I thought about what was said, we all know that it is about heaven, yet the presence of God is already with us now.  If there is anything that would trouble us or rob us of our joy, they are two – sadness and fear.  And the promise of God’s presence is firstly a constant comfort (He shall wipe away all tears) and then, faith (death shall be no more).

Remember always my dear fellow pilgrims – “Even though I walked through the darkest valley, I shall fear no evil for You are with me.”  Be blessed.