So do not fear, for
I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and
help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. (Isaiah 41:10)
We recently spent 3 wonderful
days at an in-door-water-park. The first
few hours of the first day, however, were a bit challenging. My little 6-year-old, Dylan, was very
reluctant to get in the water. “Mama, I
don’t want to go in because it’s going to sprinkle and make me wet…,” he’d say to
my bewilderment. “But, Dylan!” I would reply impatiently, “this IS a water
park…of course you are going to get wet!”
“C’mon, be reasonable!” I thought
to myself. After we realized that Dylan
wasn’t going to just cheerfully dive
in, I shooed my husband and my 9-year-old away, so I could flex my persuading
muscles alone. “Where are Daddy and
Grant going, Mama?” A very puzzled Dylan asked me when he saw them leave for
the water. To which question I kindly replied,
“to jump in the water, where else???”
Then, I took him for a walk around
the park. First, we went into the kiddy
area. There, I pointed out that little
kids were, not only surviving the water attractions, but also having fun while
at it! The visit to kiddy land bore no
fruit, so we moved on to another fun and shallow play area. Within this site there where twin slides
sitting side by side. My plan was to
persuade him to try them by telling him that he would go in the orange one and
I would go in the blue one and we’d race to see who wins! He is very competitive, so it was a great
plan! Of course, it failed. It didn’t matter how I approached the
challenge. He wasn’t budging. I used forceful commands, like: “you are going down that slide, Dylan, and
that is that!” After all, I am the
authority figure, and he is supposed to obey me, right? WRONG!
I also used old-lame lines that parents around the world use when they
want to entice their boys to do something they don’t want to do, like: “look at that little girl, Dylan, she is smaller
than you and she is not afraid of the slide!”
Like any parent at the brink of losing it, I also used threats: “Dylan, if you don’t go down that slide, you
are NOT going to have any chocolate milk for a week!” All these to no avail, of course.
Finally, surrounded by other
parents who were happily going down the slides with their happy children, I sat
down on the floor, looked him in the eye, and I said, “I know you are
afraid. It is OK to be afraid, but I’m
telling you that there is nothing to be afraid of. Nothing bad is going to happen to you. Trust me!
I am right here with you. I will
be with you all the time. I would never
send you to do something that would hurt you.
I will be right there when you come down, waiting for you. I will be seeing you all the way. You don’t have to be afraid.” “Besides,” I added, “remember, you’ve been
here before and you loved it! Don’t you
remember?”
Later, as I thought about the
incident at the water park, I was, once again, stroke by what the Holy Spirit
whispered in my ears. “Where have I
heard those words before?” Well, I’ve
heard them from our Father’s Holy Word, of course. He is our Father and we are His beloved
children. And, If we, “though [we] are evil, know how to give good gifts to [our]
children, how much more will [our] Father in heaven give good gifts to those
who ask him!” He is our Father. He is our Good Father, who is always with us,
as we cry “Abba” in our hour of fear. As
our Father, He tells us “fear not” so many times throughout the Bible that we
could possibly have a Scriptural reference about not being afraid, but fearing
only God for each day of the year. He is
with us; and, unlike our earthly parents, He is perfect and He never let go of
us. He never leaves us, “for the LORD your
God, He is the One who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you.” (Deut. 31:6b) He doesn’t even
become impatient with us for our lack of faith, for He is love and love is
patient and love is kind.
The problem is that we are
quick to forget how great our God is. We
have been “there” before, and He has, as usual, gone with us, but we
forget. We have faced fiery trials, gone
into the lion’s den, challenged giants; and through it all, the Lord has
delivered us. He has surely done great
things for us, and we do rejoice, for the moment; but then we go back to our
routine, unchanged. To our Father’s bewilderment, we forget. Then, inevitably, we face the hard times
again, and we fear, again. We forget
that He has always led us through the desserts of our lives; and how He gives
us exactly what we need when we need it.
We fear because we forget.
Let us change course right
here, right now, and pray that the Holy Spirit will never let us forget. Let’s pray that He will help us remember that
He holds our hand always. May we have a
keen awareness that He will never leave us nor forsake us. This truth we must remember in all situations
and rejoice in Him who upholds us with His righteous right hand! Praise be to Him who goes with us. Praise be to Him who “has not given us a
spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline,” (2
Timothy 1:7) In the scary hour, let us
all proclaim at loud, for the enemy to clearly hear and retreat, that: “The LORD is my light and my salvation;
Whom shall I fear? The LORD is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be
afraid” (Psalm 27:1)
With teary eyes and a frown on
his forehead, Dylan finally let me lead him toward the slide. With hesitation and often looking back to
make sure I was really “there” with him as I had assured him, he sat down at
the top of the slide and down he went. I
followed down on the one right next to his and we met up at the bottom. I got up and grabbed him tightly. Quickly, I carried him out of there, since the
lifeguard was already blowing his whistle prompting us to vacate the area for
the next sliders to be able to come down.
“You did it!!” I said to him over and over again. “I knew you could do it!” “See, you are OK, and it was fun too, wasn’t
it?” As we high-fived, I saw his face
torn between a frown and a smile, until he finally admitted that he had liked
it indeed. After that first “trial”
slide, Dylan was able to enjoy our visit to the water park. I was able to tell him later, as we wandered
around the lazy river, to remember that Jesus is always with us and that every
time we are scared, we can call on Him and He will hold our hand so we are not
afraid. I don’t know if he heard me,
since by then, Dylan was totally immersed in the fantasy of a watery vacation;
but as for me, I pray those words continue to echo in my mind forever.
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