The God of Fear

There are some who carry burdens that we know nothing of. There are some who hide up in locked apartments, looking out windows, praying for rescue. Rescue from thoughts that torture them. There are some who cannot muster the courage to step outside their front door. Day after day anxiety keeps them hidden from the beauty and recklessness of this world and keeps them from intimacy with God and others. Fear is a place we go when we lack faith. A place that says, “I have been hurt—where were you?”

A man called my office one day. “Pastor Mary?”  “Yes?” I answered. “I need help—you see, they are going to shut my lights off. I don’t have the money to pay my bill.” I asked him to come in and talk about it with me. There was a long, silent pause…”Can I have someone drop it off?” Sure. The ministry paid the bill. Two weeks passed, and I thought nothing of it.

I heard a knock on my office door, “Someone is here to see you. He is waiting in the lobby. He looks very troubled.” Hurriedly, I rush to the lobby. I see a man, hunched over, face wet with perspiration. “Pastor Mary? I rode the bus here to meet you.” Ok?

“You paid my light bill a couple of weeks ago.” Would you like to come into my office?

“Sure“…as he arose I noticed that he was carrying a beautifully old, weathered banjo, hands holding it tightly. I said nothing, just walked toward the door of my office with him following. I knew he had a story to share. Struggles to unload. I saw it in his demeanor and wet brow.

“Have a seat.” He laid the old wooden banjo across his lap. His hands were shaking, and he used his sleeve to wipe the perspiration from his face. “I rode the bus here to thank you. I have not been out of my house in ten years. It was important for me to meet you and thank you. Your kindness helped me get the courage to ride the bus. I brought you something.” He lifted up the old banjo and slid it across my desk. “This was my grandmother’s. I want you to have it. She lived in a remote part of Canada and walked several miles to church each Sunday. She played it at church.”

Sometimes we are so afraid that we never embrace the truth. The truth that we are enough, just as we are. We are worthy. His “thank you” was enough. His presence was enough. His courage was enough. I had done nothing more than extend the hand of Jesus, embracing him through telephone lines. However, the story was more than that. Someone had shown him a small kindness and it became a glimmer of hope to step outside his front door – body shaking, furrowed brow, perspiring – and onto a bus to take a chance. A chance to sit with me awhile and share his story, extending his grandmother’s banjo as an offering for a listening ear.

We talked about feeling trapped and other things. Things that cause a man to hide inside his house for ten years, looking out windows. Things that make a man say to God,  “I have been hurt, where were you?” Things that make a man ride a bus to talk to someone he does not know because she extended a small grace. Things that speak loudly, “I am struggling. I am trapped. Please help. Help me understand what brought me into this place of fear anyway. Help me understand how to overcome it so that I may live fully.“

There are some who carry burdens that we cannot see. Some in the grocery store line who smile, but who go home to care for a loved one who is ill. Some who have been abused in ways too ugly to talk about. Some who fight off the demon of fear and the sense of being trapped and isolated. Some who cannot walk outside the front door because their knees shake too violently. There are some who sit in the pews next to us on Sunday mornings, and we never know that they are struggling. Some, more fragile than others. Some lives turned upside down by a tragedy or life-altering event. Even more have only the television as a constant companion.

Fear can become a God if we let it. A God who feeds on things that have hurt us, experiences, a God who knows our hurts and uses them to insulate us. This kind of God torments its worshippers: isolating us, robbing us, accusing, accounting, laying before us the worst, wiping out hope, trust and faith. The God of Fear desires to make us live smaller lives – lives that are hidden so as not to show the Glory. This God is a liar, a thief, a harbinger of injustice, pain and of worst-case scenarios.

A faithful servant, walked through the back country of Canada to play her banjo on Sunday mornings. She would never have known that one day her grandson would be holed up in his home for 10 years with the demon God of Fear. A grandma who most likely prayed for her grandson. A grandmother whose prayers through the years, even the years after she was gone, gave him a small enough glimmer of hope to step outside, ride a bus and meet someone whom he had only talked to briefly on the telephone. Her faithful prayers brought him to his knees in the quiet of the sanctuary one Tuesday morning in front of the cross, sunlight streaming through stained glass windows, with a small-town preacher. Her prayers helped him break the shackles of fear. Her prayers ignited a small flame deep within that made him crave something greater than everything else in his life: the real and Everlasting God. The God of Truth.

There is a place we can go when we lack faith, a place we can go when fear fills the inner most places of our souls, making everything dark and drowning the light. A place where we are enough, just as we are. There is a place where we are worthy, despite the ravages of humanity, our experiences, despite all of our guilt and shame. There is One with whom you can share your story – He knows it anyway. There is One who gave His life as an offering so that we might have hope, so that we might extend a listening ear.

And somewhere in heaven, there is a grandmother strumming a banjo who knows that her prayers have been answered. Somewhere in heaven there is a grandmother smiling because her faith ignited a small flame in the soul of her grandson, enough to give him the courage to lay his burdens at the feet of an old wooden cross in the sanctuary of a small town church on a Tuesday morning.