The Fear Factor and "WTF?"

                                                                                   Photo courtesy of Copper Pointe Church

                                                                                                                       
Way Too Funny!
What does it mean?
In life, there are always unknowns.

I seem to have more of them lately than usual.

And I don't care for it.

I'm not big on surprises and am working very hard at trying to let Christ lead me from chaos and confusion. 

My youngest daughter Natalie, loves, loves, loves surprises!

And just surprising me.

Which is really just a nice way of saying, "scaring the crap out of me."

I've had it.

Last weekend Nat was busy babysitting, and I came back into the house pretty late and all of the lights were turned off.

The kitchen lights.

My desk light.

The reading lamp by the couch.

Off.

"That's weird," I thought to myself.

"I don't think I turned those lights off." 

Making my typical confused look, I scratched my head and started to re-walk my recent steps.

"Oh my gosh! I know I didn't turn those lights off."

The dogs were acting normal, and I was momentarily scared that maybe I wasn't functioning quite so normal.

Breathing deeply and remembering that God is not the author of confusion and I have a sound mind, I decided to just let it go.

So, I opened up the shower curtain to draw a calming Calgon bath, when Natalie jumps up from out of the tub with great Friday the13th zeal and screams as loud as she can in her demonic man voice.

I think I yelled "JESUS" at the top of my lungs, while my heart beat threatened an attack for the next 15 minutes, which is about how long it took her to finally stop laughing.

That's not funny.

I don't like to be scared.

I admit that I have fear issues.

And I'm not saying this is why, but as a small child I was dragged kicking and crying into haunted houses I didn't want to go to and I've had people pop out of darkened stairwell closets with pantyhose over their heads, scaring me so badly that I nearly peed my pants.

I think I tinkled just a tad.

Now, here I am, 45 years old and I still get up out of bed to shut my closet doors if they are cracked even an inch.

It probably will not get me a spot on My Strange Addiction, but it's still not funny.

Just last night, I was coming out of the bathroom, all the lights were off in the house, and I was getting ready to go to bed.

Turning the corner to go into the kitchen to get my end of the day ice fix, she jumped out at me unexpectantly again.

"BOO!!"

This time I was super ticked!

Enough already with frickin' Freddy Krueger games!

"What the "F"?"

"Quit doing that to me!"

I ranted at the top of my lungs through all of the reasons that I don't find that fun.

She and her older sister Chelsea were laughing so hysterically on the bed, they had tears pouring out of their eyes.

Absolutely enraged, I threatened to take her phone if she did that to me one more time.

The unexpected is scary.

We are supposedly moving in less than 10 days and I've been pretty good lately to just embrace the change with enthusiasm and trusting that God's plans will be for good.

(I pray this is his plan.)

I was thinking about how Peter must have felt when he saw Jesus call to him on the water.

Peter was in the boat and the wind and waves were getting kind of crazy.

The disciples cried out in fear, "It's a ghost!"

Today, you know they would have totally been saying, "WTF?" 

Jesus, being the water walker kind of guy that he was, spoke to them calmly, "Don't be afraid. Take courage. I am here!"

Show off.

As much as I've often wanted to walk on water, I know it's not so realistic.

I have a hard enough time just drinking 8 glasses a day.

Peter stepped out of the boat, and began to walk on the water towards Jesus.

Then he got side tracked by looking all around him at the chaos of the weather conditions, and he started to sink.

That's what I do sometimes too.

I take my eyes off the prize, and quickly realize, I'm sinking.

And I'm scared to death I'm going to drown.

One of my devotional verses on my YouVersion Bible app today was, "There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to to do with punishment." 1 John something or other.

If we are living fearfully, we are not fully experiencing or accepting his perfect love.

In the footnotes, my Tyndale NLT study bible says, "If we are afraid of the future, eternity, or God's judgement, we can remind ourselves of God's love."

"We know that he loves us perfectly and we can resolve our fears first by focusing on his immeasurable love for us, and then by allowing him to love others through us. His love will quiet your fears and give you confidence."

God is love and Fear is not of God.

Neither is scaring your mother half to death, but I'm confident she won't be doing that again anytime soon.

Fear of losing her phone privileges will surely prevent that from happening again.