We have nothing to fear but, well, just about everything!

How to listen over the sound of rattling knees

"But whoever listens to me will live in safety and be at ease, without fear of harm.” Proverbs 1:33

Today’s lesson is not about fear.  It’s about listening in the midst of fear.  For the purpose of illustration, I would like to enter into evidence this photograph of me, taken a couple of years ago in a tiny wooden shack that hung precariously from the side of a mountain somewhere deep in the Costa Rican rainforest.  I don’t know if you can see it clearly or not but there’s a ginormous tarantula on my shoulder.  What on earth possessed me to permit such a ridiculous occurrence I can’t say for sure.  All I know is that one minute I’m marveling at the creature in its little chicken-wire cage and the next minute its delicate, hairy, slightly sticky feet are slowly inching up my neck. 

Although the whys of this incident still elude me, I do have total recall about one thing.  Before placing this … this thing on my person, its owner looked me straight in the eye and said, "They sense fear” (well, that makes two of us), relax (is he kidding?!), and don’t make any sudden moves” (does that include shrieking and bolting for the door?)  He never really told me what would happen if I failed to heed his instructions, but when you’ve got something this big and creepy perched that close to your central nervous system, well let’s just say you don’t exactly need anybody to spell it out for you.  So I listened to what he told me to do.  And you know what?  I can honestly say I wasn’t afraid.

There are all kinds of examples in the Bible where God told folks to listen to Him when they were facing danger.  Sometimes He wanted them to take specific action.  On other occasions His counsel was to just stand there and let Him fight the battle.  Sometimes He promised deliverance from the difficulty, while at other times He promised only to carry His beloved through the difficulty.  But in order for them to know which method He had in store for them, they had to listen to what He said.

Of course, that’s all fine and good for those guys way back in stone tablet days, when there were angels and burning bushes and talking donkeys handy to deliver the message, but what about us right here and now?  Say you’re honestly and justifiably afraid that you or your husband will lose your job in a difficult economic time.  Or how about the report from that medical test your doctor ordered yesterday?  Or what if your young teenager has suddenly taken up with an unhealthy group of friends?  Sometimes fear is very real and very scary. How do we listen when our knees are rattling? 

I’ve been thinking about this and I can only offer one suggestion.  We can’t listen unless we shut up.  We have to sit perfectly quiet for a while and just be aware of the Presence of the Lord, as in "Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).  Eventually, some measure of peace will come, and we’ll be able to discern if it’s a peace to let go of something, or a peace of confidence to do something courageous, or simply a peace of comfort and assurance. 

The best way I know to describe this last one is by recalling an incident that happened when I was about six years old.  An avid tree-climber I was forever scampering up into the loftiest reaches of my grandmother’s big old pecan trees.  But one time I got a little too ambitious and found myself way too high.  Suddenly I panicked and began to scream, bringing my parents running.  Now obviously my daddy couldn’t climb up there and get me.  I was up into the slender little bendy branches that were barely sturdy enough to hold me up.  All he could do was "talk me down” and that’s exactly what he did.  Slowly, patiently, and calmly he told me exactly which foot to put on exactly which branch, all the while telling me funny stories and engaging me in rhymes and riddles to distract my little freaked-out mind.  It wasn’t his specific instruction that rescued me.  I could have figured out the necessary path down all by myself, but I was too scared, too terrified, and too absolutely paralyzed by fear to do it.  What I needed was the sound of my father’s deep, reassuring, familiar voice to get me out of that tree.  I listened and I wasn’t afraid.

Oh, just one more thing on the subject of fear, I just looked at this photo of me again and have come to this profound conclusion:  I should have spent a little less time being afraid of that tarantula and a little more time being afraid of what a tropical rainforest had done to my hair.