FEAR IS often the most overwhelming motivator for Christian women. We fear our children won’t remain close to God or will make bad choices in their lives. We fear we will lose our jobs or that our husbands will lose their jobs. We fear financial insecurity, old age, poor decisions in our own lives, the loss of our self-esteem as we raise families, and we especially fear the future.

When fear rules our lives, all sorts of sin enters our hearts. We try to manipulate situations to avoid the outcome that frightens us, as Sarai did when she interfered with God’s plan and manipulated the people around her to produce a son of Abram.

In the middle of our efforts to affect the outcomes we want, we find ourselves with hearts full of distrust, anger, and half-truths, and we cannot seem to find our way out. Faith and trust in God fall by the wayside.

God’s message to us is do not give way to fear. As the psalmist wrote, “I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame” (Psalm 34:4-5).