Stop Facing Your Fears
When she grabbed my hand and said, "Mom come with me!" how could I refuse? Her excitement was contagious. And let's be honest...there must have been some part of my pride that didn't want to look like a wimp in front of my daughter...some kind of desire to seem bigger, cooler, more invincible in her eyes. There usually is.
Weaving through the crowds she led me to the base of the tallest, strangest looking ride on the midway. Amidst thousands of people, the crowd had suddenly thinned out and there was oddly no line up here. I should have known...
Before I could protest or inquire of my fate, the tall tanned "ride attendant" grabbed my fistful of tickets and grinned like a Cheshire cat while he pulled the buckle taut. The steel bar cut painfully into my legs as he slammed it down and locked us in the tiny cage. A cage! I was like a caged animal unable to get out!!
But those things I only remembered afterward. In the moment I was too enthralled with my 7 year old thrill seeker's giddy laughter as her brown-like-mine eyes got huge telling me how "awesome" this was going to be. How this was the best day of her life and here I was sitting right there beside her being a part of it. I really was Super Mom!
The warm fuzzies dropped out of the bottom of my stomach the minute the ride lurched into action...whirling, spinning, tipping and slamming us up toward the sky and down again to the ground. I white knuckled the bar, squeezed my eyes shut tight and held on for the proverbial dear life. I was so terrified I couldn't even open my mouth to scream. I almost died I'm sure.
After what seemed to be 45 harrowing minutes the torture came to a merciful stop. I struggled to find my legs and eased my near 40 year old legs out of the crazed contraption.
Only minutes later I couldn't believe I had actually done it. As I sat down and watched the next unsuspecting victims climb aboard and begin their ascent into death my jaw dropped to see what I actually had gone through.
Later on, after the vertigo wore off, it hit me. The reason I so easily stepped into that cage and was willing to ride with my daughter was because I had spent no time watching it before getting on. I had no clue what it was going to do. I was so caught up in my daughter's lit up face and the excitement of doing this together that I never gave a thought to what I was getting myself into. I couldn't take my eyes off her delighted face long enough see what was behind door number FEAR.
I knew definitively that had I watched that ride in action first...there is an excellent chance I would never have got on.
I know it's not a perfect parallel but the whole thing has me thinking about the concept of facing our fears.
Is it possible we spend too much time doing just that: looking at our fears? We focus on them, study and analyze them, make excuses for them based on genetics and shrug our defeated shoulders while drawing attention to them...giving them undeserved weight. Just looking at them is enough to prevent us at times from acting, loving, serving.
You know where this is going...what if we are spending too much time facing our fears and too little time face to face with Our God?
Too little time studying Him, knowing His Name, understanding His character?
Have we mainstreamed fear and anxiety while downplaying the power and truth of His Word?
Are we mislabelling what could potentially be unbelief?
Are we simply looking in the wrong direction?
The Psalmist knew the importance of what we fix our gaze on as he penned the psalms of Ascent, "I lift my eyes up, to the mountains, where does my help comes from?.."
Because what we're looking at informs what we are thinking, and what we are thinking informs what we do and say and it all starts with what we are looking at.
And as always Jesus Himself is asking,
"Who do you say I am?"
At the very real risk of losing you to the cliche...I have to say it: Your answer to that question could be the difference between sitting on the grass eating cotton candy and the absolute ride of your life.
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