“Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in You. In God (I will praise His word), In God I have put my trust; I will not fear. What can flesh do to me?” (Psalm 56:3-4, NKJV).

Did you catch what was interesting about those verses? First, I was interested that it says, “Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in You.” He’s afraid, so he’s going to trust. The decision to trust comes after the feeling of fear. He has the feeling of fear. He’s not so full of trusting—calm confidence—that he doesn’t have the feeling of fear, at least for a time.

Then, in the next verse he says, “In God I have put my trust; I will not fear.” This is the opposite. The knowing feeling is in trusting God, and the decision is to not fear. There are two other parts to this verse. There is a decision to praise God and a declaration of truth, which we know as God’s Word: “What can man do to me?” or in one translation, “What can mere mortals do to me?”

We have a feeling of fear come on, followed by a decision to trust, followed by a decision to praise, which results in putting our trust in God, knowing truth about who He is and who we are in Him, which results in a decision to not fear.

If we want to change our feelings, we have to change our thoughts. We change our thoughts by renewing our mind, by feeding it the truth of God’s Word, meditating on it day and night, until that is what we are thinking and not the thoughts of man. When the thoughts of man come in and cause thoughts of fear, we go to God’s Word. We put His truth in our mind, reminding ourselves of who God is and who we are to Him, and we make the decision to trust. We praise Him and choose not to listen to the feelings.