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Tuesday, October 29, 2013

You Don't Scare Me Anymore.

 


Not much scares me. On my trip to Africa, I walked, climbed, and crawled from the plains to the mountains, for a glimpse of the dangerous wildlife. Knowing parasitic insects, three of the worlds deadliest snakes, large charging animals, and many feared predators, lived where I was walking, climbing, and crawling. Never once was my faith stifled. I've ridden horses and even an ostrich. I've been cave diving. I have crawled into a shark cage to observe great whites up close. I have no fear of flying. My job involves working with live electrical circuits from time to time. I live in a house where the ratio of men to women is one to three. Public speaking, considered the number one fear, rated higher than fear of death, it's a piece of cake for me. Belief in an infallible God's perfect plan, affords one many freedoms. Yet, I dread every Halloween. I don't do scary movies. I don't do masks. (By the way, I am always packing, so you might want to pull that practical joke on someone else). Halloween, I literally hate it.
Even though I know the history behind Halloween, this isn't some attempt to condemn those who celebrate. I want people to have fun. I don't care what night it is.  However, I could actually see you put on a mask and it would still creep me out. Silly, I mean, all that stuff isn't real, right? While it might be true there are no monsters underneath my bed, our faith teaches the existence of demons is real. Over the years, studying the bible, I found the stories of Satan and his demons most disturbing. To be honest, it scared the crap out of me.' I guess, knowing those who worship demons count Halloween as their most sacred day made me a little nervous. Ephesians 6. reminds us our enemy supernatural.  Somehow, I keep forgetting, living inside of us is the supernatural creative power of the universe, the Holy Spirit. The same power that kicked Satan's butt out of heaven, kicked the door in at his house and stole his keys. I keep forgetting, all the verses that belittle our enemy. Like, greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. 1 John 4:4 God has given is a spirit of power, love, and a sound mind instead of fear.2 Timothy 1:7 There's more, lots more. From time to time, when I get the wind knocked out of me, I look through the word for some ammunition to use against the evil one. Recently, while still shaking in my godly armor, I swung my sword when I came across a passage in Isaiah 14 :12-17 . It basically says, one day we will look at satan and wonder how we could have ever been afraid of him. Come to think of it, he does look a little puny when you compare him to how big God is.