The Boogey Man

Growing up, my dad pastored Washington Baptist Church in Greer. We lived in the parsonage there, which just happened to be right beside the cemetery (Sidenote...the house is not there anymore...they actually picked it up and moved it years ago). My sister's and my bedroom was located across the hall from the guest room, and the guest room overlooked the cemetery. Many a night, I had trouble going to bed because I could "just swear" I saw ghosts rising from the cemetery and looking in the guest room window. My parent's never really bought into the whole "I see dead people" theory, so you can imagine their "understandingness" (yes, I made up a word!) when I was still crying and hysterical at 10pm at night, and they couldn't get me to go to sleep. Let's just say I got many "a Holy talking to" and we'll leave it at that! Irregardless, in my young mind, I still felt as though I saw the spirits of church members past rising up to greet me each night, only to cause me great angst and a mounting fear of the unknown. I wouldn't exactly say that this is the root cause of my fear today, but it certainly isn't unlike me to fear the unknown...whatever the situation. Until this Bible study on "No Other Gods," I hadn't really realized what a grip fear has on me. I am terrified of my children being hit by a car (really, I am!), which is in part because I was hit by a car when I was five. I am somewhat scared of the dark, due in part to my nightly visits from the ghosts in the graveyard and in part to too many Dracula movies watched as a child. I fear "not measuring up." I obsess, all too frequently, over not being what others think I should be, or even fear who God sees me as. I fear losing friendships. I am not too sure why I fear this because I really have only had to part ways with one friend my whole entire life, yet I still fear it. I fear what God may ask me to do, and yet I thrill in what God could ask me to do. You see, fear is such a strange thing for me. Half the time I am fearing, I don't know that I'm doing it at all. The part of fear that scares me, however, is how much I take it for granted. I know that we are told all through God's word to fear Him. This isn't something that means what I just previously described as situations of being scared or afraid of Him. This is a good kind of fear. It's an awe of a Holy God that has my very best interests in mind. A God that desires to see me soar and not remain stagnant. A God who will love me no matter what my past is, or how I screw up my present, and quite possibly try to control my future. He is a God that just sees me for me, and that's that! Typing those words overwhelm me because I see in them such hope and promise. I know that if it were just me on this earth, He would still love me just the same - wholly, completely, utterly!
Sunday night something happened to me that I don't have happen much. In the midst of our class in "No Other Gods" having a time of prayer God spoke to me so clearly, that while it wasn't His audible voice, it might as well have been. I heard God so loudly in the midst of ladies in the room praying to lay certain idols at His feet, that I almost had to look up to see if the Father Himself wasn't really standing right beside me. God clearly spoke to me, "pray for the one who needs to lay fear and worry down." Again, "pray for the one who needs to lay fear and worry down." As I began to pray a loud, again, "pray for the one who needs to lay fear and worry down."
I prayed it, ladies. I prayed it as best I knew how, as God told me to. The result of this has been just like God is and always wants to be in our lives. Specific lives needed to hear it. Two ladies in particular have shared how the thought of laying fear and worry down shook them to the core. At first I was surprised, but hey...God was trying to tell me something, wasn't He? He wanted them to know just how much He wants to take this fear, which had become an idol in their life, and wanted to remove it from their life. What a promise He has given us to "never leave us or forsake us." Today, I just want to grasp this...to wrap my little mind around it and just BELIEVE it!
All those years ago, I believed the Boogey Man was out to get me every night. As ridiculous as it sounds to be so scared of ghosts today, the reality of fear is still there. The other reality is that there is the same notion of the Boogey Man being out to get us. Lives were shaken Sunday night because the Boogey Man, or Satan, if you will just indulge me for the purpose of this illustration, is out to get us. He is prowling around, looking for those who desire to name the name of Christ...just so He can destroy us. Giving fear a foothold is just what he wants. Let's make way for the greater fear, though. Today, let's just see how a Holy fear of God will take us straight to the door of freedom, because it's there we find a Savior waiting to take it all on our behalf!