Making the appointment felt like a death sentence. Admitting my shaky sensitivities to, of all people, a psychiatrist. An untrustworthy, over-confident, judgmental, intellectual. He was going to tell me how hopeless I was. Look at me like a weak old woman. Send me out limping on both hips. Feeling worse than when I went in.

It’s this kind of fear that kills us. Exaggerating our situation, assuming someone’s motivation. Drawing untrue conclusions. It’s so loud and proud we can hardly resist it. It speaks to the heart of who we are. Cowards. I say that in the most sympathetic way. Remember how the apostle Paul called himself the chief of sinners? Well, I am the queen of cowards.

Making the appointment felt like a death sentence. Admitting my shaky sensitivities to, of all people, a psychiatrist. An untrustworthy, over-confident, judgmental, intellectual. He was going to tell me how hopeless I was. Look at me like a weak old woman. Send me out limping on both hips. Feeling worse than when I went in.

It’s this kind of fear that kills us. Exaggerating our situation, assuming someone’s motivation. Drawing untrue conclusions. It’s so loud and proud we can hardly resist it. It speaks to the heart of who we are. Cowards. I say that in the most sympathetic way. Remember how the apostle Paul called himself the chief of sinners? Well, I am the queen of cowards.

Wow! How painfully split the fear of the flesh is from the fear of the Lord! The new king got right to work comparing himself to those outside his circle. Obsessing over Israel’s growing power against his smaller number inflated his fears. Attacked by a scenario brewing inside his own head. The possibilities of what Israel might do to him, how they could ruin him must have kept him up all night. Acting on those fleshly fears only increased Pharaoh’s paranoia—leading to a chain of heinous events. The supreme ruler was afraid for himself! Pharaoh was the lowest form of power—Pharaoh was a coward! And cowardly fear succeeds in feeding one thing: death.

Shiphrah and Puah feared, not the schemes of evil, but the righteousness of God. They knew Who rained fire and brimstone on Sodon and Gomorrah, heard about the God who flooded the earth sparing Noah. These God-fearing women (who were likely midwives on account of their own barren wombs) understood Who owned Pharaoh.

Fearing God speaks to the heart of who we are in Christ. Conquerors. “Yet in all things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.” (Rom 8:37)

Willing to risk their earthly lives, they plotted to keep the defenseless alive. Unafraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul—they feared the One who has power to destroy both. And don’t miss what God gave Shiphrah and Puah: “He gave them families.”

The fear of the Lord breeds one thing: life.

“Something incredible happens when we shift our gaze. Like Peter on the water when we turn our darting and frantic eyes from the crashing waves to the Holy One, not removing our fear, but rather reorienting it, our feet land firm again. No more sinking. Held.” – Katie Westenberg, I Choose Brave

We could learn a few things from the Hebrew women who feared God and couldn’t quit. Fixed on the God who gives—Jochebed (Moses’ mother) took bulrush, asphalt, and pitch, put her baby in it—and by God he lived.

Our hearts turn from yellow to purple when we fear the Lord and shun evil.