When I Am Afraid I Won't Make It

Devotional

The question doesn't come during worship. It comes at 11:40 at night when the house is quiet.

What if I don't make it?

And you're a little embarrassed to even have the thought, because you've been a Christian a long time. But you've watched people go. People whose prayers used to move you. People who seemed more certain than you've ever been. And they're just not around anymore, and nobody talks about it.

So you lie there wondering if you're next.

I want to say plainly: that's not a small fear, and it isn't a sign you're faithless. It's actually the fear of somebody who knows their own heart well enough not to trust it. You've watched yourself drift before. You know how fast conviction gets soft.

So the question isn't really "is God faithful." You'd answer yes to that in a second. The question at 11:40 is whether you are.

And that's exactly where Jesus meets it, not with a challenge to try harder, but with a fact about whose hands are involved.

"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand."

Read the order. He doesn't say those who follow well enough eventually earn it. He gives it. And then: they will never perish. Not probably. Not if they stay vigilant. Never.

But he isn't done. "My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one."

Two hands. The Son's hand and the Father's hand, and they're not two separate custody arrangements you could fall between. Your perseverance doesn't finally rest on how tight you're holding him. It rests on his grip on you.

Then Paul takes it further in Romans 8, and I want you to notice one thing about the grammar.

"Those whom he foreknew he also predestined... and those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified."

Every verb is past tense. Including glorified.

You haven't been glorified. Not yet. Look at yourself. But Paul writes it as done, because in the mind of God it's that settled. And notice nobody drops out of the chain. Nobody gets lost between called and justified. The same number that starts finishes.

Which is why Paul can write Philippians 1:6 with such confidence: "He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion."

His confidence isn't in the Philippians. It's in the one who started it. God doesn't leave buildings half-framed.

So what do you do with the fear at 11:40?

You don't shame yourself for having it. You just don't let it speak last.

The fear says: you're too weak to hold on.

And the honest answer is, yes. You are. That was never the plan.

Now, this doesn't mean the road is smooth. There'll be stumbling. There'll be months where you wonder if any of it's real. Jude wrote to people who knew their own fragility, and here's what he gave them:

"Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy."

Able. Not just willing. And "with great joy" — that's God's joy at presenting you. He isn't going to hand you over reluctantly, shaking his head at what a project you turned out to be.

So let the fear come. Let it ask.

Then answer it with something better than your confidence in yourself.

You belong to a shepherd who knows your name.

And he isn't going to let go.