Fear Factor

The house was made of ice cream, cupcakes, and candy. It was a cute pink, white, and red. The minute my daughter saw it, she said,” Ice Cream House!” with utter excitement.

We were at The Enchanted Forest; a small story-book themed amusement park South of Salem, Oregon. It’s a nice little amusement park that I have been going to for as long as I can remember.

I held my daughter tightly as we walked down the brick pathway and into the “ice cream house”. She is two years-old, has big dark blue eyes, and the most beautiful blonde pony-tailed hair you’ve ever seen. Her body perked up with excitement as she approached the house.

This was not simply an ice cream house though, it was the witch’s house from the morbidly strange children’s story ‘Hansel and Gretel’. And from the moment we got about two feet from the entrance to the house, Kylie knew something was afoot that wasn’t quite right.

Her little body stiffened with fear and her bobbly head reluctantly peeked around the door frame to see what was hiding inside this house deceptively made of ice cream. And with her adorable little two year-old voice she said something that sounded like;” I squaied….” Which I’m pretty sure means “I’m scared.”

Then, she saw the thirty+ year-old antequated animatronic witch luring in Gretel while Hansel was being held in a cage dangerously close to a fire, and began asking to “Go home!”

Then I remember that, I too when I was little, was terrified of this same attraction at The Enchanted Forest. I knew it was fake, I knew Hansel and Gretel was simply a fairy tale, I too was intrigued by a house made of candy and ice cream, and I knew that my older sister and brother-in-law would protect me if something went awry. But I was still terrified.

Now my daughter Kylie is only two and she doesn’t know anything about witches, what canabalism (Hansel and Gretel) is, and originally had no idea what was even inside, but for some reason she knew to be afraid.

Jesus’ words to Peter after Peter declared Him to be the Christ are brought to mind when thinking about my daughter’s fear today; and mine when I was a child. He said,” …on this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”

So many Christians live in fear of the unknown, worry about things they have no control over, blame every little hang-nail on the devil, hide from the world in fear of being infected by the “contagious” illness of sin, and never step out to accomplish God-sized things because they’re afraid of failing.

Either they’re too young in their faith or too naive to know why they are scared; or they know that there is truly nothing to be scared of in light of what God has promised them, but for some reason they just fear.

I think fear is instilled in us from a very young age. Since the culture around us has become so familiar with fearing particular things, we follow suit, and it becomes our very nature.

I’ve watched videos of newborn babies being surrounded by snakes, and they weren’t afraid at all. So I guess it’s more nurture than nature when it comes to our fears. But how are we nurturing a culture of fear; especially within the church??

We as Christians, as the Church, are called and established to be Hell-Busters. We literally have the power achieved by the finished work of Christ through the  Holy Spirit to break down the very gates of hell! No one can stop us from accomplishing the God-sized things we’ve been called to; no one except for ourselves. It is only our fear that will stop us from accomplishing what God has put in front of us.

So whether it’s a witches house made of ice cream, an opinionated gossiper, or the devil himself; we have no reason to fear because the battle is not ours- it is the Lord’s. Satan, sin, hell, and death are being done away with, but the victory of Christ and the assurance thereof lasts forever.