What Are You Afraid Of?

A few nights ago I had a dream that a crustacean was sitting next to me in bed.  You know the kind…some odd underwater creature with those antennae that wave around in search of a victim.  This one had prickles like a porcupine, but a very thin body.  He was freaky looking, and in my dream, he was TERRIFYING.

All I can remember was desperately needing to get away from this little urchin as quickly as possible.  Still asleep I began screaming at the top of my lungs while literally diving across the bed with my full body and onto the unsuspecting chest of my husband.  From his dead sleep, my weight and ear-piercing cries for help were unwelcome at best.  I kept staring at the imaginary crustacean and yelling for rescue.  Why wasn’t Mark beating that thing to death???

Finally Mark’s voice broke through my brain to let me know that I was dreaming and did not indeed need to claw my way out of the bed.  I woke up just enough to calm down and see my cat staring back at me in place of my false reality.

Stop laughing at me.  You’ve been there, too.  And dare I say that some of us are afraid of things that aren’t real, but we’re not even sleeping?

Maybe you are afraid of doing the ministry idea that God put in your heart because you are afraid of failure?  Maybe you won’t go to the doctor because your afraid of bad news?  Maybe you won’t ask that girl out because you are afraid of rejection?  Now, granted, sometimes what isn’t real might become real down the road, but for now, it’s just….well…fear.  And a very unproductive fear at that.

We so often go through life making decisions based on realities that we believe might be true, but really aren’t.  And even if the end of the story has some hard realities, knowing sooner usually leads us to the right path, the right decision, and the right truth.  Failure is usually used by God in mighty ways, health issues are cured more often when faced early, rejection by one usually allows us to find the other…and so on.

Truth is our friend, whether that truth turns out to be a creepy crustacean or a friendly cat.

So, what is causing you to be fearful in your life and how much reality is really in those fears?  What you’ll probably find is the voice of Jesus waking you up to truth and leading you back to peace and comfort.

Good night and sweet dreams! 😉