For God did not give us a spirit
of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.
- 2 Timothy 1:7
Sometimes it seems like I can’t
escape them. I go to a baseball stadium and there they are. I go to the mall
and there they are. I go to the airport and there they are.
You probably think they’re
innocuous, helpful even. They’re no different from a bicycle or a car, you
might say, just another way to get from point A to point B. You may look at
them and see the triumph of technology over inconvenience, proof of progress.
But I know the truth. I know that
escalators are terrifying.
Yes, everyone has an unreasonable
fear, and those terrifying moving staircases are mine. I think my fear stems
from a trip to The Ballpark in Arlington (as it was known then), which has some
of the most towering escalators I have ever seen, particularly if you’re going
all the way up to the nosebleed seats. As my family and I were leaving the
game, I put my foot on the moving step just like I was supposed to—and I
tripped. Stumbling downward, I flailed wildly for something to grab onto, and
by the time I regained my balance I was four or five steps lower than I’d
started, my eyes wide and my heart racing. I was suspended one hundred feet in
the air and because of those moving steps I had almost fallen to my doom.
Looking back as an adult on that
moment, I’ve realized a few things. One, I wouldn’t have actually fallen one
hundred feet—probably twenty at the most before I’d have hit the platform where
the next escalator began. Two, my depth perception is quite a bit better as an
adult than a child, so I’m not likely to miss that first step again unless I’m
being really careless. Three, escalators really are convenient when your knees
don’t feel like taking regular stairs. Yet even knowing these three things,
when I approach an escalator I can’t help but pause an extra second before
taking that first step. Rational or not, escalators scare me.
I wish I could say that escalators
are the most frightening things we face in our world, but of course that isn’t
the case. We are bombarded every day with stories—of crime, sickness,
terrorism, and a host of other forces—which are enough to leave you curled up
in the fetal position. The world says you have two choices when confronted by
fear—to retreat in weakness, or to face your fear with your own strength. So
for example, when an enemy strikes you, your choices are to run or to hit back.
These, conventional wisdom says, are the only valid options.
But the way of the cross is
anything but conventional. Speaking to our fears, Scripture reminds us that God
does not give His people a spirit of cowardice, that we are not called to
simply avoid or escape conflicts when they threaten us. But neither does He
give us a spirit of retribution. Jesus’s teachings, his interactions with
opponents, and ultimately his death consistently show that the righteous
response to pain is not to return fire.
The spirit God does give is of power and love and
self-discipline, a spirit that enables you to overcome fear with neither
cowardice nor counterpunching, but with the cross. It is by relying upon God’s
wisdom and strength instead of your own, by placing your faith in Him even when
the end result is not your immediate gratification, that your fears are truly
overcome. So when your fears threaten to overwhelm you, when you find yourself
reaching for the easy solutions of running away or striking back, may you instead
turn to the way of Jesus, overcoming the power of fear with the greater power
of love.
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