What are You Afraid of?

For the first time ever, I sat the boys down to watch Monster’s Inc.

For everyone who has seen the movie, it’s cute, right? It’s funny and heartwarming with the typical bad guy mischief of Disney movies.

My son who is not a fan of scary things was convinced at the intro of the movie (the monster in the scare simulator practice) it was scary and bad and he needed to close his eyes. I wasn’t going to forbid him from closing his eyes but I tried to convince him it was not really scary but would turn out to be funny. He warmed up to the movie.

He laughed. He stared deeply into the television.

Then, the ending. By this point the monsters have realized child laughter offers more energy to run the city than screams (if you haven’t seen the movie- you really should.), therefore, the ending while sets up like the beginning (in a dark bedroom) is actually an entire comedy routine with zero scare tactics. However, because the build up was similar to the intro of the movie where you were made to 'feel’ scared J did not want to see the ending.

He covered his eyes. He yelled.

We had to unplug his ears and convince him it was funny as we didn’t want him to end the movie on that note.

But how often is it us that run away from big things because they seem too scary.

What is holding you back?

Did you know, God is not a God of fear but a God of love? And perfect love casts out fear. Don’t get me wrong, we are all going to feel afraid. Because we are human. But when are we going to uncover our eyes, unplug our ears and take hold of the righteous God of the Bible? When are we going to stop trying to control our circumstances and stop missing out on awesome opportunities stemmed from our fear?

Anxiety is debilitating. And I wrote a blog about that. But the point is, there is a certain point that we can only trust God. We can continue to assume our ways will help or work better OR we can look to Jesus.

For me, one specific fear that almost costs me life and love comes to mind. I was so utterly afraid to have children because I feared they would either be abused or become abusers. I was too afraid to be an advocate that I was willing to “wait until I was prepared.” God had another idea. I’m glad he did. I had other plans in motion as well, but none bigger than that back of my mind agonizing fear that if I had a boy first he would surely grow up to abuse others or if I had a daughter she would surely be abused and I would be helpless and would have ruined another life.

I didn’t willingly choose to trust God in that moment but there have been many other fear filled moments like a trip to Africa, an ask to help write sexual abuse curriculum, a call to testify against my perpetrator, a decision to homeschool and disciple my kids and many more that I have taken big leaps of faith.

Those leaps weren’t without bumps but I have not regretted for one minute any of the blessings that unfolded out of them.

What are you afraid of? Are you willing to trust God with that choice or that fear? Are you willing to accept that you are powerless to overcome it on your own?

Photo by Caitlyn Noble on Unsplash