“When I am afraid, I will put my trust in you. I praise God for what he has promised. I trust in God, so why should I be afraid?” Psalm 56:3-4 (NLT)

You will never overcome the fear in your life until you start basing your hope in God’s promises.

Where do you typically put your hope? Maybe you put your hope in yourself, in the economy, in conventional wisdom or public opinion or cultural values.

But the only hope that lasts is found in God’s Word.

In the Bible, God makes more than 7,000 promises to you. If you go through life not knowing the incredible things God has promised to do, it’s easy to be filled with anxiety.

If I needed to have major surgery and was worried about being able to afford it, I would check my insurance policy. If the policy said the procedure was covered, then I wouldn’t sweat it, because the insurance company promised to pay for it.

The reason so many people are fearful and anxious and worried is because they don’t know what’s in God’s manual for life—the Bible. It contains promises from God about your finances, your health, your relationships, your career, forgiveness of sin, and eternal life. But if you don’t know them, you won’t know that you can hold onto them when life gets hard.

It's time to start studying God’s promises in his Word and focusing on what he said he would do for you—much like Mary did when the angel told her the big things God was planning for her life.

Mary’s cousin Elizabeth saw Mary’s faith and said to her in Luke 1:45, “You are blessed because you believed that the Lord would do what he said” (NLT).

Mary believed God would keep his promises. That’s what gave this scared, young girl enormous confidence in the middle of a very fearful situation. She believed God would keep his word.

When you start doing that, you will be blessed too.

“When I am afraid, I will put my trust in you. I praise God for what he has promised. I trust in God, so why should I be afraid?” (Psalm 56:3-4 NLT).