Not Everyone is Afraid

I took a steak knife with a sharp point out of the kitchen drawer and walked out our front door. As I headed down our driveway, I rotated the knife so the blade was pointed behind me. I wanted to conceal it before I did what I was about to do.

To my left I saw a mother with a child in a stroller stopped on the sidewalk. She was watching a young boy who was tottering along the top of the bricks on the wall which borders our yard. I assumed he was her son.

I walked down our driveway and approached the mother and her children. The little boy stopped walking along the wall and asked me, “Do you have brothers?”

I tried to conceal the knife behind my leg. “Yes, I have three brothers and four sisters, but they all live in California.”

“Do you want to be with them?” He asked.

I realized he was hoping they would be his age and he could play with them. “I like being with them, but God has me here in Phoenix for a purpose.”

“Do you like the Giants?” he asked. He was wearing a SF Giants tee shirt.

“I like the Giants, but the D-Backs are my favorite team now.”

“I like the Giants”, he said as he pulled the tee shirt away from his chest and looked down at the lettering.

“Where do you guys live?” I asked the mother.

“We just bought a house around the corner from here,” she replied.

“Welcome to our neighborhood. I had better get going, because my wife wants me to cut some rosemary off our neighbor’s bush.”

As I started walking away, the mother said, “I wondered what you were doing with that knife.”

“Yeah, I have a job to do. My wife is making soup tonight.”

As I approached the rosemary bush in our neighbor’s front yard, I thought about the mother. She loved her children, but her instincts told her the man who had emerged from the house, who was clumsily trying to conceal a knife in his hands, was harmless.
So, she stayed to let her son finish his walk and allowed him to talk with me.

The world has been, and still is full of troubles, but not everyone is afraid. Some people have learned to overcome fear and triumph over adversity.

In 1974 I did a construction project on a home in Greenbrae, CA for a couple who impressed me. The husband was blind. Every day he commuted twenty miles to San Francisco for his work. I watched as he walked down his driveway with a cane, lightly tapping the sidewalk. He walked down the street and headed to Sir Frances Drake Blvd., where he caught a Greyhound bus into the city.

Three days after our project started, he left on a business trip. He took a bus to the airport in San Francisco and then flew to the east coast, where he was to speak to a gathering of parents who have blind children.

I asked his wife about how he navigated the bus, the airport and the travel in cities where he had never visited before. In those days curbs, crosswalks and elevators were not yet designed to help blind people. She explained how her husband’s parents had raised him.

Their son was born blind and, from the time he learned to walk, they would not shield him from walking into a chair or a wall. If there was a toy left on the floor, they would not warn him if he was about to step on it. They realized that bumping into a wall or tripping over a toy might be painful, but it wouldn’t be fatal. They did not want him to live in fear, but to be as free as possible.

They wouldn’t let him walk into a passing car, but, aside from life threatening situations, they let him experience the consequences of running into things without their interference. As a result, he grew up without fear of unseen factors. He literally traveled the world for his work, which was helping parents of blind children understand the best way to give their children a life without fear.

Every parent wants to protect their children from harm. We want them to grow up healthy and happy. Unfortunately, many parents overprotect their children. As a result of removing consequences which cause short-term pain, those children never grow into adults who live life to the fullest.

Several years ago, I was talking with my pastor friend Kurt, who was frustrated by a lack of opportunities to preach and do ministry he considered significant. I could relate since I have had those feelings. I told him, “You need to slay your Goliath.”

Spiritual giants are not people, but spiritual forces of wickedness which seek to hinder our relationship with the Lord. Those forces work through people who intimidate or hinder us. They may threaten our jobs or the people we love. The people might not be evil, but the way we react to them causes us problems. The ultimate giant is the fear of death. We have to face these fears if we travel to dangerous places or speak out in ways that may provoke unhealthy people.

God knows our circumstances and our vulnerability. He doesn’t want to harm us, he wants to set us free from fear. So, our wise and loving father leads us into situations where we have to confront those spiritual giants and overcome them.

Fifteen years ago, I took pastor Kurt with me on a trip to Ecuador. We had a wonderful time preaching and teaching in churches, and on radio and TV. Many people made commitments to follow Jesus and we ministered to pastors and leaders in several cities. At the end of our trip, Kurt got very sick and had to be hospitalized overnight. I was really concerned for him, but he soon recovered, by the grace of God.

I saw Kurt recently and asked how he was doing. His face lit up. He is excited about life and ministry. Over the last several years, he has told me numerous times about the hundreds of people who have committed their lives to Christ and the hundreds more who have been healed in his mission outreaches.

Kurt has traveled back to Ecuador doing missions work every year since we went there together. He also leads teams on men’s retreats and ministers to pastors in Mexico. He has done several ministry sessions over Zoom with over 1,000 people in Pakistan. He is flying to Pakistan for ministry in April. Kurt has slain giants, and his life has been transformed in the process.

Each of us have opportunities and challenges. Sometimes we must battle with powerful spiritual forces. Whether your giants are big or small, they must be dispatched if you are going to fulfill your destiny fruitfully. Fruitful believers learn to resist fear. Their destiny is shaped by the One who loves us so much that he sent his son to the cross so we can have forgiveness and freedom to enjoy life.