The “What If” Game: Overcoming Uncertainty

Have you ever played that game?  “What If” was a game we played, as children, where you had to answer what your response would be to any possible situation.   “What if so-and-so asked you out?” “What if Mrs. Turner called on you to give a speech on Outer Mongolia?” From the ridiculous to the sublime, we’d play the “game” continuously.

But the games don’t end with the passing of childhood.  We just transfer them over to adult situations with scarier scenes to ponder.    “What if I lose my job?” “What if it’s cancer?” “What if something happens to my child?”  These things may actually happen but the choice is ours to decide if we’ll let it rule our thought life.

Freedom from the “What Ifs”

Recently in a study on Esther, I learned a life-changing lesson.  I struggled with a continuous fear and could never seem to find freedom from the nagging oppression.  With one sentence from this Old Testament Woman I saw the freedom I needed:   “And if I die, I die.”  Not all that comforting, right?   But we were asked to fill in the blank “and if ______, then ______” using our fears.

Esther was faced with a “what if” that could have resulted in her death.  But she knew her God and she knew that God would be faithful.  Though we were never promised a life without pain, we are promised that He will never leave us nor forsake us.  Can any fear hold up under that?!

What fear has a hold on you?