Fear And The Goodness Of GodShembull

What does it mean to be a “strong Christian woman”? … The description of Sarah in 1 Peter 3:6 jumps out at me: “Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. And you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening.” So often, the focus centers on the first half of that verse. But as I read, it was the second half that stood out.

Do not fear anything that is frightening. This assumes that some things we face are frightening, including, one would think, being married to a man like Abraham. (How massively would you have freaked out when word of that whole sacrifice-of-Isaac incident reached you?) So the apostle Peter holds up Sarah’s fearlessness as something for us to aspire to. With the question of “What is a strong Christian woman?” in mind, I realized that fearlessness is one of the chief traits of all the great women in Scripture: Sarah following Abraham’s call from God to pursue some seemingly crazy and dangerous endeavors, which required letting go of fear and trusting God’s promises. Rahab hiding enemy spies because she had heard and believed in the power of the God of Israel. Deborah marching out with the armies of Israel against the iron chariots of Sisera. Jael, inviting the enemy king into her tent to pound a stake through his skull. Ruth, leaving everything she had known to follow Naomi and her God into a land where Moabites were despised. Esther, taking her life in her hands to approach the king with the words, “If I perish, I perish” on her lips. Mary, Jesus’ mother, bravely and joyfully receiving the news of a pregnancy that could lead to public ridicule and rejection by the man she planned to marry. 

These women had courage. They had chutzpah. They had guts. But more fundamentally, they had faith—faith in God, faith in His promises, faith in His goodness, faith in His justice, faith in His saving power. These women did “not fear anything that is frightening.” Fear would mean hearing God’s promises and then calling Him a liar. Fighting fear and learning to trust God is, for me, a constant struggle. But these women were strong because they fearlessly believed God, and we are Sarah’s daughters if we do the same.