Robbing Our Monster's Power to Surprise

 Right now I can’t see because I am surrounded by troubles;
    my sins and shortcomings have caught up to me,
    so I am swimming in darkness.
Like the hairs on my head, there are too many to count,
    so my heart deserts me.

(Psalm 40:12, The Voice) 

 

Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.”
 

But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.” And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”

(Numbers 13:30-33, NIV) 

 

This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

(Matthew 1:18-19,NIV) 

 

Each of us has triggers that activate irrational fears, psychological monsters that seem overpowering to us but which probably would be no problem to someone else. 

 

It may be a temptation to do the right thing the wrong way, or a lie thrown in our path by the enemy that anyone else would laugh at for its foolishness. 

 

The common denominator is the same - it is a giant bigger than our own courage and it comes out when we are alone. All of us have monsters of some kind, nightmares from our past or from our subconscious, unwelcome 'visitors.' 

 

But it was the Spirit who took Joseph off-guard and filled him with the dread of Mary's unfaithfulness, God who instructed the Israelites to subdue and drive out giants, and He is bigger than any giant or monster or problem the enemy may resuscitate or invent. 

 

Sometimes He'd rather the nightmares appeared and came out into the light to be recognized for what they are, and be robbed of their power to surprise us. (Northumbrian Aiden readings, Dec. 12)