Living Water: How to Beat Fear with Hydro-Powered Trust

Trust in Him at all times.

The last line of the email stood out. Whether it was part of a usual sign-off for the writer or specially tailored to me, I’m not sure. But I didn’t skim over it without notice as I often do with email signatures. It grabbed my gaze and stayed with me when I clicked on a different email.

Because that’s the answer. That’s really all we need to win this battle against fear. We need to trust God at all times. If we do that, we will not fear anything ever again.

But applying that truth isn’t so simple. I find myself constantly falling short with my faith in God. I just can’t trust Him at all times. None of us can. On our own.

Lately, I’ve been surrounded by reminders of the need to trust God and our inability to do so consistently. I especially love this post by Diane Ferreira at Worth Beyond Rubies, where she points out how we’re fond of the phrase, “Jesus take the wheel.” But even if we manage to trust that far, we become the worst “backseat” drivers. We’re always insisting He take a certain turn or stop off at the destination we had in mind.

I, too, say I have faith in God. But when the chips are down, do I really? Sometimes, yes. Most times, no. That failure is at the root of why I fear so many things. Even my stress comes down to a lack of trust that God is in control and He has a perfect plan He will bring to fruition.

But God tells us not to fear—365 times in the Bible. Fear is no joke to God, so we shouldn’t let it slide either. He tells us not to fear, so continuing to fear without combatting it is like continuing to harbor other sins in our lives.

Yet, I know I don’t have what it takes to trust Him infallibly, all the time. None of us do. So what does God expect us to do in order to obey Him when it comes to fear?

The solution to the problem becomes apparent in this passage of Scripture:

Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
    whose trust is the Lord.
He is like a tree planted by water,
    that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
    for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
    for it does not cease to bear fruit.
– Jeremiah 17:7-8

When we’re trusting in the Lord, our trust IS the Lord. He’s doing it all. We can only trust when we’re like a tree with roots that are connected to the stream of living water. In John 4, Jesus says that only He can give us the water that lasts forever, the “living water” that will make us never thirst again.

That’s the everlasting resource Jeremiah is talking about here. If we’re in Christ, then we have unlimited access to the living water that will never run dry. That means we can be like the tree Jeremiah describes, never fearing when heat comes because God won’t let us be burned. We need never fear when trials come our way, because God promises we will not cease to thrive and bear fruit.

Do you see the answer to our problem here? We can’t trust God completely, one hundred percent of the time. We’re too fallen and contaminated by sin to accomplish that. But we don’t have to accomplish such radical trust on our own.

God does it for us. He supplies the trust through the streams of His living water that make us flourish and grow no matter what happens. As in the battle against any sin in our lives, God is the One who gives us the victory.

Through the power of His Holy Spirit within us, we can stand against fear and defeat it with unstoppable trust.

If you’re like me, that’s a nice ideal, but very hard to achieve. Truthfully, though, I think I’m not there yet because I’m trying to do it on my own. I’ll never succeed that way, and God doesn’t want me to. He wants me to go to Him.

I want that living water. I want to be that trusting Christian who’s constantly fed by the stream until I cease to fear anything that comes my way. So I’m asking God for it.

I’m asking God to give me that kind of trust in Him. I’m asking God to enable me to trust Him at all times.

Like the desperate father we read about in Mark 9:24 who says to Jesus, “I believe; help my unbelief!”, I’m crying to God, “I trust; help my distrust!”

God is faithful and will grant us everything we ask according to His will. He wants us to trust Him. In fact, He commands us to have faith instead of fear.

So if you’re finding your trust in God lacking, or if fear is gaining a foothold in your life, don’t give up or think you’ll have to admit defeat. Fear will not have the victory in this war. God already has that.

Today, ask God to help you win this battle, too, by enabling you to trust in Him at all times.

But then take the next step. Dive into that stream and drink deeply by reading God’s Word, engaging in prayer and worship, learning more about God and applying His truth and commands to your life. Jesus offers all we need to trust and defeat fear.

If you keep drinking of His living water, trust and a fearless life will be only part of what He has in store.

Has God helped you trust Him when it was hard? How do you work at strengthening your faith in Christ? Please share!