A few weeks ago I had one of the most frightening experiences that I can remember. It was a relatively small experience by most standards and certainly wasn’t comparable to a near-death collision or escaping a burning building, but for me, it was very, very scary. In fact, it was the first time that I have ever literally been physically paralyzed by fear.
I was home alone with my kids and Jeffrey was out of town. We were getting ready to go to church and things were going very well. Once I had showered and dressed, I headed out of my room intent on going to the bathroom to dry my hair. I walked into the hallway and saw, to my horror, the biggest spider that I’ve ever seen in real life. It was between the bathroom and me, and its body was the size of a matchbox car. Now, before you are tempted to think that I’m exaggerating, let me assure you that I’m dead serious. I actually blinked several times to be sure that my eyes were not deceiving me. As I stood there gaping at it, I had several thoughts in rapid-fire succession: “What do I do now?” “Is it alive?” (It immediately began walking and I was then quite sure that it was, in fact, alive.) “How dare Jeffrey be out of town when I am here in fear for my life?” “If I just close my eyes and ignore it, will it disappear?” “What do I do if it starts walking toward where my kids are sleeping?” As I was trying to sort through all of these thoughts I was having, Jack (5 yrs) came out of the room and I screamed, “Stop!” I mean, he was walking right toward it! He stopped, very obediently, looked down and said in his very sweet little voice, “Mommy? Are you gonna kill that?” I said, “Well, buddy, I want to, but I don’t know how!” He responded, “Just step on it.” It was at that moment that I realized it. I was completely paralyzed. No matter how much I mustered up the courage, I literally could not propel myself forward to step on the thing. I was overcome by fear. Then, my knight in shining armor spoke. “Mommy, I’ll step on it for you if I can have my shoes.” The amount of relief that flooded through me as a result of my little boy’s statement was amazing. Someone was going to help me!
I obediently went and retrieved the shoes and he put them on. Then, without a moment’s hesitation, he started walking toward the dreadful thing. I was cheering him on with all of the encouragement I could scrounge up. As he neared the spider, my cheering got louder. Then, he stepped on it. That’s when the horror really began. At the moment his foot clamped down on that spider, HUNDREDS of little spider babies ran out in all directions fleeing for their lives. The screaming really began then! Except for Jack. As I’m running around like a crazy person, he’s perfectly calm and saying “that’s weird!” and then, “oh man, I really don’t want the spider to stick to the bottom of my shoe. I hate it when that happens!” The only thing I could find was Lysol. I grabbed it and immediately began drowning every spider baby I could see. I’m quite certain some got away and will come back to haunt me later, but I thoroughly drowned all of the ones in my sight.
I’m not gonna lie…we were late for church and for the entire rest of that day and the next, I would involuntarily shudder and gag. I have also begun to compulsively check every inch of the floor before walking into the hallway or our bathroom or bedrooms. She had been there, so it wasn’t hard for me to believe that her little arachnid brothers would come looking for her soon! I will probably look around for spiders for a long time. Perilous experiences tend to have that effect on you.
A day or two later as I was recounting the story to Jeffrey, the Holy Spirit started using it as an object lesson for me. On a side note, I’ve asked God to teach me object lessons using some means other than flesh-eating diseases and large scary bugs from here on out…but, I digress.
I realized this wasn’t the first time I’d been paralyzed by fear, as I’d first thought. Some years ago, I was facing the giant spider of poor choices and flesh-satisfying sin. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I needed to get rid of it. I knew that ignoring it would not make it go away and that even if it disappeared in the present, then just like the spider, I would never know when it would show up in the future to taunt me. The only way to get rid of it for good was to kill it. Much like the spider, I even knew HOW to kill the sin, but could not seem to muster up the courage to do it. I was paralyzed. Let’s be clear here…I wasn’t somehow confused about what I was doing or in some state of total delusion as to whether it was wrong. But, I have a very adept way of downplaying and minimizing things, as well as talking myself into believing that I had things under control. In this situation, before I knew it, my downplaying, minimizing and rationalizing had set me looking smack in the face of the biggest, scariest, pregnant spiritual spider that I’d ever encountered. Interestingly, many of the thoughts that I had about the physical spider also applied to this spiritual one. “What will I do if it starts walking toward my husband or children?” You see, as much as we like to deceive ourselves and believe that our struggles don’t impact those around us, that is just simply not true. I knew that if I didn’t get a grip, it wouldn’t be long until my selfishness began to negatively impact my husband and children and those around me that I called friends, not to mention the ministries that God had called us to. Pretty soon, it became clear to me that even though closing my eyes and pretending it didn’t exist and/or just walking back into my life, waiting five minutes and then going back out to hope it had disappeared were FAR more appealing, they were not, in fact, lasting solutions. My only option was to KILL it.
Much like my dance with the spider, some of our dances with sin threaten to absolutely paralyze us into mind-numbing fear. As much as we’d like to fancy ourselves strong and resilient and able to handle anything, there is an enemy out there who’s dead-set on our demise…and he’s done his homework. But, greater than our enemy is the God who’s created us, knows every intimate thing about us, and also knows when we’re unable to walk forward ourselves. He’s already sent His Spirit and His Word to warn, comfort, re-direct, rebuke and restore us, but in some cases, He sends along an earthly knight in shining armor. My knight in shining armor came in the form of my best friend. I couldn’t talk to anyone and was afraid to be candid with even her for fear of rejection or judgment. But, none of those horrible things happened. In fact, I found in her a person who was willing to say “are you gonna kill that?” and then was willing to walk along with me and help me stomp on it. Unfortunately, much like the spider, stomping on sin unleashes many consequences, to be sure. Sometimes the consequences scatter in all directions and you feel like a crazy person running around to drown them all. But, by the grace of God and the help of a brother or sister in Christ, victory is completely possible! It is amazing grace, by the way. Though the hundreds of little baby spiders seemed almost too much to manage, I shudder to think what I would have been dealing with had she been allowed to grow those things to maturity and actually give birth to them! I’m sure you can guess that the same is also true with sin. The consequences that come from a decision to eradicate sin are far less future-destroying than allowing sin to grow and give birth. Death is all that follows at that point.
In the same way that I look around for spiders almost compulsively, I am extremely sensitive to situations that even hint at the area in which I struggle. I’m sure to most people who’ve encountered it, it seems like an exaggerated response and an overly protective and guarded one at that. I’m okay with it. They’ve not been where I’ve been and I hope they never are. I’m sure there will come a day when I don’t look for giant, pregnant spiders around every corner, but one single sighting will instantaneously take me back to that day. I honestly hope there’s never a day that I grow a little more comfortable about what I’ve walked through. I hope any mention of similar scenarios or struggles of others bring me immediately to a place of desperation for people to find deliverance and I pray that God gives me the chance to invest in others out of the overflow of the grace extended to me.
What about you? What are you rationalizing, controlling, or explaining away? What instantly comes to mind if you stop and spend five minutes stilling your heart before the Lord? That’s where the battle needs to begin. Ask God to send you help. He will be faithful to do so. Dive into His word and find hope. There is rest to be found when we finally face scary sin head on and stomp it to death.
“In temptation our theology becomes cloudy. The truth is, there’s no such thing as a private moment. God is always watching.” Randy Alcorn
“We fear the consequences of confession because we’ve yet to experience the consequences of concealment.” Andy Stanley
“But each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” James 1:14-15
“…but where sin increased, grace increased all the more.” Romans 5:20b
“If we say we have fellowship with Him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But, if we walk in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” I John 1:6-9
peace.
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