Fear 101

I don’t know if I ever told you this, but I suffer from a completely overactive imagination.
I’m a total scared-y cat.

I’m mostly afraid of being alone at night time. Or rather, afraid of NOT being alone when I should be, if you know what I mean. But this fear can sometimes cause extraordinarily ridiculous reactions in almost benign situations. One such situation ended up having a profound impact on my life…

London, circa 2003. I was renting a room from a spunky, elderly lady I affectionately referred to as “Quirky Gerda”. We would get into all kinds of mischief together, including climbing roofs of other people’s homes to get the best cherries Woodford Street had to offer. I was working in London before my semester at bible school started and it was a refreshing time of resting and praying and really communing with the Lord. That’s why, when Gerda was leaving for two weeks, I felt confident that the Lord would see me through the lonely nights when I would battle my emotions in regards to fear.

I was ready for bed, with the alarm on in the bottom half of the home. There was no logical way that anyone would get in the home without causing a serious racket that would a) notify neighbours and the police and b) likely scare any poor intruder to death, forcing them into a career change. And yet, my imagination persevered to deduce a theory that someone could likely go to all the effort of climbing roofs and shimmying down rain spouts in order to get in. And really, if we go that far, ninjas could be lowered from ropes off a helicopter to slink into windows on the floor above me, and, and… Yeah, let’s just say that logic had taken a vacation and every noise in the house screamed at me as if to say, “you are alone and vulnerable”.

That is when I decide to intervene on behalf of my safety, and put a chair behind the door. Yes, the chair would offer me security. But besides all this, I had faith! “Oh God, thank you for your protection…God? God?!” I could not shake the feelings of fear. I “scolded” God for not answering my prayers despite my extreme faith that He could protect me. “Why am I still battling these emotions when you said you will give faith and wisdom freely to those that ask you?”

Grumpy, I sat up in bed pondering my heavenly “abandonment” and I hear this still small voice in my heart, “if you have faith, why have you barricaded the door?”
Hmm. It was a good point. “But God, it’s my backup plan.” I replied matter-of-factly.
“To me?” came the reply.
Hmm, again. Creator of the universe, master and commander of planets, oceans, stars and I have a wooden chair as a backup for if He doesn’t come through.

Embarrassed, I got up and removed the chair from behind the door and put it back behind the desk.

Humbled, I lay down in bed, and repented of my lack of faith. Ninjas might have attacked another house that night I will never know as, no word of a lie, I slept like a log.

I have heard it said that control is an illusion. I go farther to say that it is a delusion. What silly, earthly backup plans do we have that are actually working as a barrier to faith?