A person I know actually researched the safest city in the world because she believes her current city has too much crime. Now, nothing has ever happened to her personally, nor to anyone she knows, but she is convinced it will probably happen if she stays where she is. She lives in constant fear and worry. Now, when I start to feel scornful about her choices (I have NEVER EVER chosen a place to live based on crime statistics, and my addresses in "transitional" neighborhoods will back me up!) I remind myself that just because my fear manifests differently, doesn't mean I'm behaving with any greater trust in God.
I do not go into basements by myself. Whenever I enter a room, I scan for exits. I do not like being touched by people I do not know and will sometimes panic just a bit if my hands or feet are constrained or a space is too small. I find certain noises unnerving. I never, ever, ever walk into a dark room alone. My dad, who loves me, realized I was still sleeping with the lights on in law school and when I admitted I left the lights on when I left the house, just in case I got home after dark, he gave me a remote switch so I could turn the lights on from the outside.
As my faith gets stronger, these fears actually do ease and in some cases leave entirely. As I trust more and more that God will keep His promises, I find myself worrying less, needing to take fewer compulsive precautions, being less stressed and more open to possibilities.
I am actually not a fearful person by nature. I'm actually quite adventurous and brave and outspoken and resilient. Feeling safe means my best self can emerge. Feeling safe is exactly that, a feeling, not an objective state of being.
Yesterday my friend Dee and I went on a bayou tour in Lousiana. As the boat stopped under an oak tree swamped with Spanish moss, the water green and murky and flooded with alligators, the guide, a short and powerful man called Lil Lou, called out, "Who here admits they's a candyass?"
My hand whipped into the air. I admit, I'm fearful. Heck, just show me a photo of a small dark room and my breathing gets shallow.
I was the only one to admit it, and the guide laughed. Then he reached into a cooler and whipped out a 2-1/2 ft long baby alligator. The other tourists gasped, and I just grinned and said, "Can I hold it?" The guide laughed again and said, "Really?? The candyass is the one who wants to hold him??" Cracked us up.
In my wonderment in the swamp, I forgot to feel afraid.
This is a fallen world, and wandering about like Pollyanna is not going to serve me well. But in my wonderment of the world, in my wonderment of God, it is good to forget to be afraid.
Paul even reminded Timothy that God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but of power and love and self-control. (2Tim 1:7) so maybe others too sometimes need to be reminded that choosing to fear is not the choice God made for us.
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