“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” 2 Timothy 1:7
This is a verse I often refer to in my life. If you know me a little, or if you know me a lot, I have had to take a lot of chances and rely on faith a lot… fortunately I have a wife who is with me on this and is right there taking the chances with me. But, when you are one who takes risks and relies on faith, one of the settling attacks that creeps into your life is fear. The fear may not come straight out, like watching a scary movie, or driving on some crazy road… we have had quite of few of those fears (not the scary movies because we don’t watch those, we have enough scary stories to last us a lifetime), but I am talking driving fears.
Yesterday, I was up early, about 1:45 AM (we in my family call that the butt crack of dawn, am I allowed to say that) and went to the airport, came back home, decided to head over to the men’s group. On my way over, out of the corner of my eye, I see this deer running. It was about 100 yards away or so, and I see that it is running right to the path where I was going. I start to slow down, thinking surely this doe is going to be smarter than this… but sure enough, she runs right in front of my car, I can slam on my brakes and swerve a bit to barely miss her, and I am talking inches! She would’ve done some great damage (she was a good-sized doe) if I wasn’t paying attention. I look in my rear-view mirror and I see another one running across the road as well, like they were running away from something. I was close enough to the deer when it crossed my path to look right into its eyes, she wasn’t even looking at me, even though I was inches from hurting her, but in her eyes there seemed to be this fear. After looking in my rear-view mirror and seeing this other one, I wondered what they were so afraid of to almost get themselves killed.
What does fear do to us? When something in our life causes fear, do we get blinders on and don’t recognize or see anything else that’s out there that can cause us even more damage. I have thought about some of the things in my life, where maybe I reacted out of fear, and the damage it has caused from this. Did it kill me, obviously not or I wouldn’t be writing about it. Was there lifelong damage, possibly, I know God can fix things and I also know He can work all things out for good for those who love Him and are called by Him, but I also know we get thorns left in us to remind us how weak we really are without God… this is a topic for another time. But, think about that deer, and think about your life… is there something that you are running from, and you have complete blinders on, not even realizing where you are running, or maybe even forgotten what you are running from? God has given you power to overcome; He has given you love to show He is with you at all times (even when you run out in front of a car) and He has given you a sound mind so you don’t run out in front of a car! God is with you!! You no longer need to live in fear, and you no longer need to run from it!!
