I was standing on a high point of our mountain property recently, enjoying the view, feeling the cool wind on my face, looking around hoping to see a moose or an elk.
As I stood there I remembered the time that our Irish Wolfhound was chasing a HUGE moose. Or she started to chase it anyway. The moose ran from her and my dog kept chasing and barking but then, and you could almost see this on the moose’s face, “Wait a minute. Why am I running from this?”
The moose stopped, turned, faced the one chasing her and stood her ground. Whereby my dog slid to a stop and immediately ran away. Chase over.
I laughed at the memory of it and then I realized what a wonderful truth this scene portrayed.
Our fears and problems are exactly like that. They will chase us and as long as we run from them, they will continue to hound us. But I’ve recently discovered, much as that moose did, “Wait a minute. Why am I running from this? Why am I so afraid?”
I asked God for help, to stop running and face my fears, to stare my problems right in the face and learn to cope… and He did just that. With His help, I stopped running, turned and faced head on what had been chasing me, and guess what? All that had been chasing me slid to a stop, turned and ran away.
I thought I had been running from dragons, but they were just little lizards. God helped me to see they weren’t so big and scary after all. With His help, I finally saw that I was bigger than that problem, that those fears weren’t in fact unmanageable, that with Him by my side I had nothing to fear at all.
Ok, so if I face them with His strength, they will stop chasing me and hounding me and having any power over me. They are just bullies with no real substance. If I don’t run, they won’t chase. There’s no real threat there. Once you stand your ground and face them head on they slink away in the light of His truth.
Well. Huh. Whattya know about that? I don’t have to run anymore! I got this. We can face anything together. Thank you Lord!
Alisha Nelson is a city girl learning to live off grid on a mountain in Montana with her husband Butch. You can follow her at the Roanoke Star as well as her blogs:
