Scared to Death or Scared with Flaws?

Every year I find it amusing when we pull out an old scary movie to watch during trick-or-treat season and find it to not be so scary after all. As we grow older the films we watched in our preteens and teens that once frightened us we now see as humorous. And after a few more viewings we can pick out the many flaws that the directors so carelessly missed.

A girl who's trying to escape the clutches of a monster, retreats to the getaway car only to find it locked and she doesn't have the keys. So she makes a mad dash for the house, gets the keys, resumes her get-away-position with the fast and furious get-away car, only to nonchalantly open the car door without even using those same keys that once were not in her possession.

This past weekend I was setting up my booth at an Art Fair and found myself in a conversation with someone about sharks. This gentleman and his wife had been snorkling off the coast of the Dominican and were swimming with stingrays and a shark, only this shark was toothless. Hard to imagine that,right?

This couple were on a guided swim in a cove that was managed by humans. The water was about 8 to 10 feet deep and the young shark they were to swim with had been rescued somewhere in the Gulf. Marine Biologists had removed its teeth for certain health reasons.

The couple were obviously made aware ahead of time that this shark could not harm them since it had no teeth. But, as the shark swam up close to them, the woman panicked and had to be removed from the water. Even though the shark had no teeth to harm the woman, her panicked reaction was a natural one. The obvious presence of a shark, toothless or not, scared the wits out of her.

F.D.R. once said, "The only thing to fear is fear itself."

But, I have to imagine that if it were any one of us coming up against that toothless shark, our first initial reaction would be the same as the woman swimming in the cove; one of panic.

One of the character flaws in each of us humans is the ability to be fearful of something, no matter how great or small it may be. But those of us who are followers of Christ have been taught not be fearful of anything. Timothy actually teaches us that God has not given us a Spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

So, I guess it is a matter of how we approach those things that may frighten us: either look at it in a fleshly manner or tackle it head on with the Name of Jesus, having no fear but resembling one of power.

In Natalie Grant's new worship song Your Great Name she gives us this powerful message:

Every fear has no place
At the sound of Your great Name

The enemy has to leave
At the sound of Your great Name.

Some great words to live by, approach that which frightens you with the simple name of Jesus.