Tag Archives: frightened

The Damned Cowards!

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But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur.  This is the second death, (Revelation 21:8, emphasis mine).

The first few times that I read Revelation 21:8, it just didn’t sink in.  Take a good look at who leads the list of people that are destined for hell: cowards!  When it finally dawned on me that cowards are going to hell (along with murderers, idolaters, liars, and the rest of the nasty crew), I wondered why.  After all, aren’t they already scared?

Then the Lord reminded me that courage is not about not having fear.  Courage is facing down the fear and triumphing over it.  Courage is not allowing fear to stop you when you know what you should do.

Courage is something I see every day in the missionaries and pastors of Europe.  While the rest of the world treats them as irrelevant, these brave men and women—and whole families, even!—take their faith to the nations.  Many of them have sold all their possessions to enter into the mission field.  Some have suffered hardships that have cost them dearly: health, marriages, and family death.

The cowardly are the ones who go to church, but don’t obey when God calls them to ministry.  In their amazing book, Experiencing God, Henry T. Blackaby and Claude V. King wrote that God invites you to join Him in work that He’s already doing, and that God’s invitation leads to a crisis of belief.  Joining God in His work requires major adjustments in your life.  But the thing that was hardest for me when I was working my way through Experiencing God was the chapter titled “Joining God Requires Obedience,” and especially the section titled “The Cost of Obedience.”

I was fine with obedience costing me, personally, but when I got to the subsection titled “Cost to my Family for me to do God’s Will,” it stopped me cold.  This was 1997, and I was a housewife and stay-at-home mom.  My family was more important to me than anything else on earth.  How could I ask my family to suffer and sacrifice for my answer to God’s call on my life?  Of course, at the time, I didn’t know what God’s call on my life was.  And if I hadn’t counted the cost—including the cost to my family—I might never have known.  God might have deemed me unsuitable for service if I had chosen my family over serving Him.

Baby Steps

God took me along in baby steps.  I didn’t jump into missionary service right then.  Later in the book, it asks the question: What work is God inviting you to join Him in?  When I prayed about that question, I remembered that I had been asked by another mother to help put together a children’s church program.  The church had been through a very bitter split just before I moved there, and the children’s program was a casualty.  So Sunday mornings consisted of great music, great teaching and preaching, but absolutely nothing for the children.  While the adults enjoyed the sermon, the children all around me colored pictures, ate candy, and went out to the bathroom with a frequency that far exceeded the needs of even the tiniest bladder.  So I called this woman and we met to pray and plan for putting together a children’s church program.  We had so much fun, both with each other and with our own children, that really the hardest part of all had been making that initial phone call.  That phone call had taken courage.

One day as I was showering I had an idea for a children’s program.  I was living in New England at the time, and there the kids had a week off from school, usually in February, and it was called Winter Break.  Many times, winter break put a strain on working parents, who then had to scramble to find someone to watch the kids while they work.  If they didn’t find someone, they simply had to take time off work for that week.  My idea was a one day Winter Carnival at which the kids could play games, win prizes, and learn about Jesus in a fun atmosphere.  My immediate reaction was “What a fantastic idea!” and on the heels of that thought was resistance because it was going to be a huge task to put it together in just a month’s time.

Having recently been through Experiencing God, I knew that an idea that great for sharing the Gospel together with my feeling of resistance meant that this was really God’s idea.  So I called the pastor and told him the idea.  He loved it, and told the elders about the idea.  They also loved it.  Before I knew it, people were calling and volunteering time, volunteering resources, and volunteering to help.  In the end, I had only a small part to do in planning, most of the set up, implementation, and clean up was done by others.  I had so many volunteers and so many resources that in the end, I couldn’t take any credit for any of it.  The biggest thing I did was call the pastor with the idea that God had given me.  And all that the phone call took was courage.

I knew at the time that children’s church was a temporary call, but I had no idea that God had a much bigger call on my life.  Two years after Experiencing God, and having Him change my life through service in children’s church, I got the big call.  But even the big call happened in small steps for me.  That story is too long to place here, but it is recounted in detail in my book, Laughing in My Dreams.

The point is that as I showed myself to be faithful in smaller things, God gave me bigger things.  The biggest obstacle to overcome was my own resistance.  That’s not to say that there wasn’t resistance and obstacles from other quarters.  There was.  But once I made my mind up, it was easy to overcome those things.

When I moved back to Italy as a missionary, I had a strong call of God upon my life, and my own determination to follow that call.  People on both continents told me that I am a very brave woman to have moved to Italy alone.  At first I thought that they just didn’t know how scared I am at times.  But then I realized that courage is not the absence of fear.  Courage is going ahead despite the fear.  And you know what I learned?  Franklin Delano Roosevelt famously said, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”  What I learned in facing down fear is that fear flees when faced with determined action.

As many of my readers know, the End Times is on my mind a lot lately.  In reading Revelation 21:8 again, I realized that there will be a lot of people who take the Mark of the Beast, knowing that the Bible says not to.  In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if the Antichrist made that mark the number 666, just to snub his nose at God.  I have heard that several non-believers are reluctant to take a microchip into their hand because they recognize that it sounds like what Christians say will happen.  Those people who take the Mark knowing that they shouldn’t, will do so because they don’t want to be beheaded.  They are cowards.  They will end up in the Lake of Fire because they chose temporal comfort over eternal security.  And really, the only reason why they would do that is because they just don’t love God.

Don’t be cowardly!  Stand up for your beliefs.  We will overcome by the Blood of the Lamb and by the Word of our Testimony.  And never forget: God is good!  He will give you the strength and the joy to go through whatever you must go through.  Yes, joy!  The joy of the Lord is your strength.

Dreaming Truth

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Day Seven

I had a dream that faded almost as soon as I was awake.  All I remember of it were impressions: I had something embarrassing happen to me, but I don’t know what.  The devil tried to make me feel ashamed for the embarrassment, I don’t remember how.  I shrugged off embarrassment, and the Lord told me (the only thing that I remember clearly): “Where pride is absent, grace abounds.”  Perhaps that means that hurt pride results in shame.

I don’t always dream about the devil, but when I do, I tend to remember it.  A couple of times, I’m sure that’s because he was actually there.  I will tell you about them, not because we should be fixated on the devil—not at all!  But I think these particular dreams are instructive.

The first time I dreamed about the devil I was 17 years old, born again, and newly filled with the Holy Spirit.  However, I didn’t really know or understand how to walk with the Lord.  I had been raised in the Episcopal Church, and made my decision to follow Jesus the night before my Confirmation.  But I just didn’t know that we could pray spontaneous prayers, so when I had a need (sick relative or whatever), I looked it up in the Book of Common Prayer and prayed from the book.  But when I was 17 my parents started going to a Charismatic Episcopalian prayer group.  They invited me, too.  I had never heard people pray like this, and I loved it.

A man from the prayer group was involved with the Full Gospel Businessmen, and invited us to come to a meeting.  The man who preached talked the whole time about the Holy Spirit.  I was fascinated.  We Episcopalians always called Him “The Holy Ghost.”  And He was the mysterious member of the Godhead.  But this man talked like he actually knew the Holy Spirit.  At the end of his sermon, he invited anybody wanting to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit to come down front.  I had no idea what that was, but I wanted it.  So I went down front.  I hadn’t known it at the time, but my parents were right behind me.  The man laid his hand on my head and immediately I had strange words in my mind.  I hadn’t known what to expect, nobody had told me.  But the man said, “Speak those words.”  So I did.

The first devil dream came shortly afterwards.  I dreamed that I was in my bedroom, with everything exactly in place, just as I had left it before going to sleep.  He entered my room by the door and walked around to the side of the bed where I was laying.  In the dream, my skin jumped up to goosebumps and I was very scared.  Then he grinned and sat down on the bed beside me.  I felt the mattress compress under him.  That’s when I woke up, and I could still feel the mattress compressed where he had sat.  I was very frightened and completely weirded-out.

Now, I understand why the devil visited me in that dream: he was trying to catch up with God as usual, but he was too late.

He showed up at other times in dreams through the years, doing scary things like walking around my bed in my new house.  The floor in the bedroom was linoleum, and although I didn’t see him, I could hear his hoof-steps on the floor.  Another time I saw my Bible get pulled out of the bookcase by invisible hands and put in backwards (spine inward).  But sitting on my bed was the scariest thing of all.

This winter while I was home visiting my family for Christmas break I had the first devil dream I had had in a many years.  Again, in my dream I could see my room exactly as I had left it before going to sleep.  I saw the devil standing by my window, backlit by the landscape lights outside.  Immediately, I turned my back to him and in my dream went right back to sleep.  A few weeks later I heard about how Martin Luther handled the devil’s nighttime visits.  He wrote:

When the devil comes at night to worry me, this is what I say to him: “Devil, I have to sleep now. That is God’s commandment, for us to work by day and sleep at night.”

Ha!  Just what I did, but I didn’t talk to him.

A week or two later, I had another devil dream, and this one paralleled the first one.  My room was exactly as I had left it before sleep.  The devil came in the door and walked around the bed to where I was sleeping and sat down on the bed.  Again I felt the mattress compress under him.  But this time instead of fear, I got angry.  I told him to get out of my room.  And I woke up.

As I observed above, I believe that the devil is just trying to catch up with God.  But he can’t.  I heard a Joseph Prince sermon recently that I wrote about in I Will Make You Know.  Basically he pointed out that where you see the devil interfering, God has already been at work blessing you.  Therefore, give God praise and thanksgiving for blessing you in the area where you see trouble.  You can read it in more detail by following the link.

Just imagine the trouble we could give the devil if only we really understood our inheritance as God’s children.  We were made to live as more than conquerors, so why are we living ordinary lives?  In the movie Superman II (1982), Superman gives up his superpowers for love.  Very romantic, and not so much different than God becoming a human because of love for us.  But many Christians are living Clark Kent lives that are excruciatingly ordinary, when we have been given the right to live the supernatural lives we were made to live.

This is day 7 of my fast for understanding of these End Times, and how better to prepare for what’s ahead.  I believe that living in God’s supernatural empowerment is key.  God is good!

The Panic in Their Eyes

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I don’t think of myself as a scary or intimidating person.  But with one word I can strike terror into the hearts of people in many countries throughout Europe.  And it doesn’t matter what that word is or what language it’s in.

Last evening was a perfect example: I was having dinner in the hotel restaurant here in Budapest.  Like most hotels and hotel restaurants in cities throughout Europe, the staff speak English—at least enough to do their jobs.  The restaurant was empty for a while, so it was just me and the two waiters.  One waiter, let’s call him Neo, had served me coffee earlier in the afternoon.  He spoke excellent English.

The other waiter had seated me then skittered off and busied himself with the task of removing one fork from each place setting on each table.  When Neo emerged from the kitchen the frightened waiter whispered something to him.  Neo came to give me a menu, then joined the other man in the task of fork removal.  I quickly made my choice and then watched as both men worked their way closer and closer to me.  The frightened waiter worked his way to me, skipping my table and moving on without once looking directly at me.  Neo, seeing that my menu was closed, came and took my order.

The thing I had done to so frighten the other waiter was this: I spoke English.  The poor man was terrified that I might speak to him in English.  I have seen this reaction many times in Italy.  I am fluent in Italian.  But even if I speak Italian, many times people will panic when they hear my English-accented Italian, fearing that I will switch to English.

And guess who is the most frightened of all: my own English students.  Some students who stopped coming to me for English lessons years ago will get that look of terror in their eyes when they see me enter a room.  When (if) they speak to me, they will speak only Italian.  Some won’t risk speaking to me at all.  In non-classroom settings, I have never insisted that my students speak English with me.  I prefer my social interactions to be relaxed and stress-free.  But most of them have never given me the chance to tell them that—in any language.

That’s not to say that all my English students are afraid of speaking English.  Many brave souls will speak English with me.  A few will actually seek me out for English conversation.  But those lazy ones who didn’t want to study, instead wishing that I would just open their skulls and pour the language inside.  Or maybe they want me to find the USB port in their brains and download the English language file.  Sorry to say, it simply doesn’t work that way.

One time I saw that terror reaction from one word to an American boy in his early 20’s.  He was sitting beside me in an airport restaurant in the US.  He asked where I was going, and I said, “Milan.”  He asked what I do there.  At the word “missionary” I thought he was going to throw up.  He quickly finished, paid, and left.  I’m not going to speculate on why he had that extreme reaction, but I do pray for him from time to time.

Then today at lunch the tables were turned on me.  I had ordered in English, and so enjoyed my lunch (chanterelle mushroom soup—yum!) that when the waiter took my plate and asked how I liked it, I answered one of the dozen or so Hungarian words I know: finom (delicious).  He answered something in Hungarian.  And every time he came back, he spoke to me in Hungarian.

When the frightened waiter from last night came to start his shift, my lunch waiter whispered something to him.  Now I was the one with the terrified look.  Here’s how my imagination translated that whispered sentence: “You’re wrong, Laszlo, she does speak Hungarian!  She’s been holding out on us!”