Lord of the Flies [worry]

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“Celebrate God all day, every day. I mean, revel in Him!...Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.” Phil. 4:4,6-7.

“Every part of Scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another---showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God’s way. Through the Word we are put together and shaped up for the tasks God has for us,” 2 Tim. 3:16-17.

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I taught Psychology to high schoolers and absolutely loved it. Leaving it behind to stay at home with my boys was a decision filled with a lot of debate and soul searching. Entering parenting, I thought the combination of my teaching experience and psychology background was going to make for an incredible foundation. I knew the theories, I had decent common sense, I had been the ‘fun aunt’ for years, and I could manage a room full of teens. Parenting would just be more of the same, with greater investment.

So I’m guessing your grin is ear to ear by now. All that background did was give me a false sense of security regarding how much of an investment parenting would require. I thought I had the prerequisites down. Yeah, not so much. So, what I actually found was that raising three little boys was infinitely harder and more taxing than anything my teaching career had ever absorbed from me. I found myself driven to God’s word in a way I never had been before. I became passionate about finding answers at first, which grew into a passion to find Him. I knew that my foundation had to be rooted in God’s word, so I had to learn it. And I don’t mean ‘learn it’ like the exam’s tomorrow and then you can forget it all. I mean learn it, as in sink into the core of my being.

God was weaving this lesson into my life the summer William was about to turn 3. He developed an irrational fear of flies and I turned to psychology principles to help. But I tried everything in my arsenal and nothing worked. We had prayed too, but again this irrational fear was no less weak and he was really starting to drive us all crazy with his crying over flies.

One afternoon I took the boys their lunch outside to eat in the midst of this fly phobia (get the local wildlife in on the post meal clean up!). I found the boys sitting at their little table all holding hands. Aww, how cute I thought and snapped a shot without them knowing. I sat down to talk with them and asked why they were all holding hands. ‘We’re helping Will cause he’s afraid of da flies,’ Tad (4 at the time) reported.

I was so busy trying to figure out how to get rid of the problem, I hadn’t considered what God might want to develop in my boys through this problem. I had not sought God; I had sought an escape route. God’s Word is clear to tell us to embrace our trials so He can grow us up in Him. I know that the fruit of the spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control) are all developed through situations which naturally want to produce the opposite. I just hadn’t thought of God using this irrational fear to produce godliness in our lives.

I talked with the Lord and felt Him urging me to allow the boys to grow through this and point William to God’s word with his anxiety. So, I gave up all the strategies I’d been trying and asked William one day, ‘would you like to read a story with me about someone who faced a very scary thing?’

We read Daniel in the lions den, just he and I. He knew the story well but he was about to learn it at an application level. We talked about how Daniel must have been afraid and how scary it must have been to go into a den filled with lions, but with God’s help he did it. Daniel said that God had protected him by sending an angel to shut the mouths of the lions. We prayed that God would make William brave like He had made Daniel brave and that God would close the mouths of the flies just like He had done with the lions.

We made up a little song to remind us what God had taught us in His word that day (be glad I can’t sing it for you now!):

Brave like Daniel in the Lion’s Den,
Brave like Jonah in the belly of a whale,
Brave like Joshua at the battle of Jericho.

It was God’s word that took Will’s fear that day, not gradually, but that day. Away! . I’m not suggesting every fear we encounter will be lifted so quickly. In fact William had two other instances of panic after that with flies, but they were short lived and we went back to God’s word. But this was God’s lesson for me, a momma, about the tools I would use to aid my boys through this life. He was demonstrating the power of His Word above all else.

It was around this time the boys began to beg for their Bible time daily at the breakfast table, which up till this time had been very hit or miss. Their request surprised me because I wondered what they were actually taking from the time. They seemed so easily distracted by each other, so all over the place. Bible time was just not what I thought it was supposed to be; yet God was showing me His lessons were penetrating their little hearts. When our pattern was well established, but still zoo like, I remember asking Wyatt what I could do to help him feel better one day when he was sick. His response, “read the Bible to me Momma.”

This was all the conviction I needed to get that God was doing His work through His Word, despite my failings as a mother. Wyatt had learned that comfort could be found in God’s Word. This is setting a pattern that he will take with him as he grows. The best intentions of a loving mother are no substitute for the power of God’s Word in a life. The twins are currently about to turn 7 and Tad is 8 ½, there is a genuine love of God’s word in each of their hearts. Do they still argue and fight? Yes. Do I love God’s word? Yes. Do I still argue and fight for my rights? Yes. We are all a work in progress, bathed in His grace and eager to partner with Him in this journey towards growing us up in Him!

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"God means what He says. What He says goes. His powerful Word is sharp as a surgeon's scalpel, cutting through everything, whether doubt or defense, laying us open to listen and obey. Nothing and no one is impervious to God's Word," Hebrews 4:12-13.

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