A Matter of Faith...

By Carol Round

Monsters Under the Bed

He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, "Quiet! Be still!" Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, "Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?" They were terrified and asked each other, "Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!" Mark 4:39-41(NIV)
As a child I was afraid of the dark.

I never knew the source of my fear or how old I was when my fear led to a nightly ritual of looking under the bed and in the closet before I would crawl beneath the covers. I still wouldn’t go to sleep without a night light to illuminate a small corner of my bedroom.

For years, my parents tried unsuccessfully to allay my fears of the dark. I remember waking at night and peeking out from under the sheets to see if any mysterious shadows were cast on the wall that was softly lit by the tiny light plugged into the outlet. With my little heart beating faster and faster, I lay petrified while the shadows became monsters the size of prehistoric animals.

Finally, when I could not contain my fear, I’d yell for my mother—sometimes at two or three in the morning—to ask for a drink of water. When my mother turned on the hall light, I could see that the monsters of my imagination were merely harmless moths or other night creatures.

I don’t remember how many years this ritual continued, but I know my mother must have had the patience of Job to get up during the nights that I called for a drink of water simply to ease a child’s fear of the dark.

As adults, we have fears of a different kind. Although we are no longer afraid of things that go bump in the night, we let other fears paralyze us and keep us from making choices—choices that could improve our lives or the lives of others.

Now, overcoming my fear of the dark seems easy compared to the apprehension I first felt when I let God lead me in a new direction several years ago. After teaching for 30 years in the same school system, I left a secure job and moved to a new community. It was faith that helped me overcome that fear of the unknown.

Fear of the unknown can keep us from taking that first step toward leaving a job and seeking another when we are unhappy or unfulfilled. Fear can stop us in our tracks when God calls us to serve Him in a different way and we don’t want to leave our comfort zone.

I like Pastor Andy Stanley’s statement about fear. “Fear,” he says, “can drive you places you never intended to go.”

Where is fear driving you? When we place our trust in the Lord, we have nothing to fear. His light will guide us from the darkness.