I was in a changing room cubicle trying on jeans at a clothing store when someone bashed loudly on the door, shouting at me with startling urgency to ‘get out immediately!’ Hobbling out of the store ‘shoeless’, one leg in and one leg out of a pair of jeans that I didn’t own, clutching onto personal belongings, held little appeal.
Murray Smith
Still, I did my best pulling back on my own daks as quickly as I could while the urgent voice trailed off burbling something incomprehensible about a bomb. A bit dishevelled, I left the cubicle and walked out into a deserted shop. Previously busy, it was now empty and silent – although a faint alarm wailed somewhere far off in a distant part of the large shopping mall that I had chosen for some casual shopping.
Downstairs things were far from casual as panicking people in evacuation mode crammed exits trying to vacate as quickly as possible. Confusion and uncertainty escalated, charging the atmosphere with fear. Stragglers like me picked up the pace realising it warranted being taken a little bit more seriously. Getting marshalled into a huge outdoor covered carpark, the frightened crowd’s mood subdued generally though some sobbed quietly.
Feeling a bit tousled, I saw many were worse off… some with unfinished haircuts, others had abandoned transactions, uncompleted purchases of food and goods abounded – it was a messed up situation. I learned later, one national chain store sustained losses of tens of thousands of dollars when opportunistic ‘customers’ became shoplifting thieves, rushing through checkouts taking goods unpaid for.
A security officer told me the mall’s administration had received an anonymous phone call about a suitcase left in the Food Court, alerting the hint of a bomb being planted there. Heavily padded personnel with a robotic device on caterpillar style treads arrived as I was exiting. I’ll never forget how fear ‘shrouded’ people in that bizarre experience. Though the bomb scare proved to be a hoax, the threat of imminent life-threatening danger literally struck terror into many. An acronym for fear came to mind as a reminder that often, fear is baseless – False Evidence Appearing Real.
Unwanted interruptions and scary unexpected invasions can occur in life, up-ending equilibrium, triggering fear that grips a person’s heart – maybe fears long entrenched within thinking patterns. Fear of death -either our own or that of a loved one, perhaps fear of being harmed, of illness or receiving a sinister medical diagnosis, fear of redundancy, or mounting debt crushing us, fear of failure, fear of others rejecting us, fear of confined spaces… fear of the future. A very long list of awful fears that afflict people could be compiled.
But did you know there is an antidote to all fear? Repeatedly in the Bible is the phrase ‘fear not’. How is that possible? When we personally experience God’s love, His perfect love expels all fear and the torment it afflicts our minds with. We’re also told, “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind”.
Being free from slavery to fear and knowing the inner peace that God provides, will hold you steady through every situation.
Flat Lay of the Holy Bible and Items on the Desk. Photo: Chris Liu, pexels.com
