Fear No Evil
Can I confess something? I am a scaredy-cat. Like, a big one. I am a total and complete wuss. A pansy. A snowflake. Don’t make any sudden movements in my presence, please. Do not come up behind me unannounced unless you want to see me crumple to the floor in a puddle of tears. (It’s happened before, just ask my husband.) After nearly fifteen years of marriage he has learned to make himself heard before entering a room, but sometimes even his “warning whistle” sends my heart into palpitations.
Last month while my mom was visiting she started a game of hide-and-seek with my children, unbeknownst to me. Wondering why the house was so quiet, I ventured down the hall to inquire. As I passed the open bathroom I was startled at the sight of my mother standing in the shadows behind the door frame. Her unanticipated presence gave me such a fright it took me a solid three minutes to compose myself. (It took my mom even longer, but that’s because she was doubled over in laughter.)
When I was in the eighth grade I experienced my first real dose of paralyzing fear. My friend Vera had come over for a sleepover, and after my parents went to bed we indulged in our first ever horror movie, Scream. Anyone who lived through the 1990s will recall the way that movie raised the bar for the entire horror genre. Sweet Vera and I thought we were mature enough, cool enough, and brave enough to handle it. One of us was wrong and I’ll give you a hint, it wasn’t her.
We had planned on sleeping downstairs in the family room, but when the movie had ended and the TV screen went black, I suddenly became very aware of how dark and quiet it was on the first floor. I convinced Vera to relocate up to my bedroom for the night, but the trek down the hallway and up the pitch-black stairwell was almost too much for my faint heart. I snuck a pair of kitchen shears from a drawer and gripped them tight, preparing myself for an intruder in a white mask to pop out and slice me into ribbons as soon as I reached the top. Once we managed to settle into my bedroom unharmed, Vera went right to sleep. I envied her. I white-knuckled the kitchen shears under my pillow, cold beads of sweat gathering around my hairline. I laid awake all night long.
Scream was the first and last horror movie I ever watched. For years the costume from the murderer in Scream was a wildly popular choice on Halloween. I made a point of crossing the street whenever I saw one. Okay fine I still do, I admit it. It’s been twenty-five years and that mask still strikes terror in my heart.
Thankfully, I married a man who also finds zero joy in horror movies. We do, however, enjoy actions or dramas, even super intense ones. Zach gets more entertainment from watching me than from the screen. I get so immersed in a movie that I have physical reactions. I can’t stand suspenseful music and because I startle so easily, I have to plug my ears or duck under a blanket until Zach gives me the all-clear. I’m not exactly afraid, I just put myself in the movie and I don’t always know how to get out. My son, God bless him, is like me and has absolutely no interest in watching frightening parts of any movie. All we have to say is, “Justice, the part coming up might be a little scary,” and he’s halfway down the hall before we finish. “Call me when it’s over!” he yells from the other room.
Fear comes in two forms: rational and irrational. When we’re young, irrational fears are common. Monsters under our bed, for example. I had a ridiculously irrational fear of swallowing pills. I was sure the pill, however small it was, would lodge itself in my throat and I would suffocate. I insisted on taking all medicines in liquid form until I was in high school. My brother was petrified of bees. I had a cousin who was terrified of butterflies, (something about the unpredictability of their movement) and another who was afraid of escalators, (for reasons unknown to me). And of course, there’s the ever-present fear of needles that plagues a vast majority of children and adults alike. I don’t have any fear of injections, but I do have a strong aversion to IVs and blood draws. (I’d explain, but quite frankly I get squeamish even typing about it.) I also wouldn’t go on a waterslide or a roller coaster that went upside down until I was in my late teens, I’d argue those fears were hardly irrational though, as drowning kills thousands of people each year and I once saw an episode of 9-1-1 where someone fell to their death after their harness released going through a loop on a roller coaster, and we all know those fictitious emergency dramas are R-E-A-L.
If you’re a mother or wife, you understand rational fear all too well. When our husband is late coming home, we immediately jump to conclusions. (I once enlisted Zach’s co-worker to access the security cameras at his office when he was over 45 minutes late and unresponsive to calls or texts. Turns out he was just held up by an unexpected conversation with an officemate and left his phone in the other room. He was not, in fact, trapped under something heavy or lying in a ditch in the parking lot being feasted on by wild coyotes as I had feared.) When we send our children off to school we wonder if we’ll ever see them again, because violence on school campuses is a real threat in this country every single day. When their fever spikes or our house alarm goes off, when we spot a poisonous spider in the backyard, or when we lose sight of them on the playground, all our internal alarms go off. There are dozens of very real dangers that threaten our peace of mind every single day. So what do we do about them? We prepare. We have fire drills and lockdown drills. We track our spouse’s location on their phone. We hire pest control and we keep the doctor’s phone number on speed dial. We get our children fingerprinted in case they ever go missing and we make sure our life insurance policies are up to date. I’ve trained my kids to dial 9-1-1 and to memorize our address and phone numbers, just in case I drop dead one day without warning. I periodically quiz them on stranger danger. Preparing gives us a sense of control over the unexpected, and sometimes our preparedness prevents disaster from befalling us. But what if it doesn’t? This is what we actually fear: the unexpected.
As someone who once battled crippling anxiety, I know that fear is a fast, downward spiral the enemy uses to pull us as far away from God as possible. When we’re sitting in our fear, it doesn’t matter how rational or irrational we know it is, the way out seems impossible. My thirteen-year-old self knew it was crazy to think a masked murderer was lying in wait outside my bedroom door, and yet I couldn’t shake the possibility of it from my mind. The troublesome images played over and over in my head. That’s what fear does. It is relentless; a shadow that follows us until it consumes us. But do you know what else is all-consuming? The power of God; and it’s because of His love that we are not consumed (Lamentations 3:22).
When we are being drawn into the cloud of fear by the enemy, we can fight back. We can refuse to go quietly and instead retaliate with the words of God which strike terror into the very soul of the devil. James 2:19 says that even the demons believe there is one God, and they shudder. I can’t help but smirk when I read that verse. The presence of God, the very truth that assuages my darkest fears, is the same thing that causes the devil to tremble in fright.
Some of us have lived in fear for far too long. We’ve allowed ourselves to become consumed; we’ve pulled our fear over us like a weighted blanket, comforting yet suppressing. Some of us have had our worst fears realized. We’ve lost a loved one, we’ve been violated or betrayed, and we’ve witnessed the worst life has to offer. We know our fear is rational because it’s already happened to us. Is the presence of God enough? Yes, it is.
In Psalm 23:4 David writes, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” There is so much goodness in this one simple verse. “Even though,” David says. Not “even if.” He’s telling us we WILL walk through the shadows. We WILL face death, if not someone close to us, than our own. Somewhere along the way, our life or the life of someone we love will be threatened. Even though we can’t avoid it, we can face it without fear. “I will fear no evil, for you are with me.”
Fear has no claim on our hearts when the Lord is by our side. His all-consuming love leaves no space for trepidation. 1 John 4:18 says, “Perfect love drives out fear.” I imagine God’s love shoving fear aside, crowding it out, and refusing to let it back in. Fear is an unwelcome intruder. “Your rod and your staff, they comfort me,” continues David. Shepherds used the rod to fight off predators coming after their sheep, just as God defends us against the evil one. The staff was used to guide and direct the sheep, keeping them together in safety. God does the same for us. His rod and staff are tools meant to help us ward off fear. What a comfort they are indeed. So even if the worst should happen, I will not give way to fear. My God is with me.
There are plenty of people who still won’t go in the ocean because they saw the movie Jaws, and I’d be lying if I didn’t get slightly suspicious whenever I see a large flock of birds, thanks to the brilliance of Alfred Hitchcock. Perhaps if I’d clenched a Bible in my hand instead of kitchen shears that terrifying night in 1996 I would have slept in peace.