Sharks, Clowns, The Dentist, and Running…

Fear – noun; a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid.  verb; to have reverential awe of

Fear, what an interesting concept and emotion. The definitions above are only two of the ways that dictionary describes fear.  I am interested to hear your definition of fear.  Do you relate to either one of these two definitions or is yours something completely different?

I believe that there are many things to be afraid of in this world, for instance, sharks, clowns, that weird sucky thing at the dentist office, you know the one that sick too far in your mouth and leave it hanging there as it attacks the inside of your cheeks all the while making that shrrrrrrrr ek shrrrrrrrrr sound. Anyway I am not here to make light of those types of fears, but only to present what is becoming my new definition of fear.

The last few mornings I am done something that if you know me, at least in my present state, is very unlike me.  I have been running.  I have been know to say that I hate running with all of my life.  Sorry all you runners out there.  I have always equated running with punishment, “Sawyer! Go run until practice is over or until you puke!” or something that your Freshman P.E. teacher would have you do because they had gone out the night before and needed fall back on their ace in the whole. It’s athletic. It takes up the whole hour, and I don’t have to do anything. Come on you P.E. teachers out there, even the most honorable out there know that there is a little bit of truth to that statement.  This morning I equated running with something that I never thought I would, fear. I woke up finding myself afraid of the run I was going on. I wasn’t afraid that I was going to get attacked by a rabid Dachshund or mobbed by the ladies that walk in large hunting parties, I was afraid that I would not be able to finish the route that was planned.  I realized that I feel like this everyday, whether I am running or not. Fear has become a shackle, something that was stopping me from living the life that God had planned for me. With running everyday I wake up afraid of the challenge , afraid of what I will have to go through, but on the days that I complete my run I can see that my day is better for it. I am more alert, less emotional, and overall have a brighter outlook. I think that is what God is asking of us. To get up and run. To put one foot in front of the other and complete what has been put before us.  When we do that our life looks different.  The greatest thing is that no matter what fear lurks out there there is a God that has conquered them all. He knows our path and all we have to do is follow it and complete it.

Imagination Movers?

For those of you who don’t know me. Here is a little bit of an update. I have been married to an amazing wife for almost 7 years and I have two beautiful kids, a three year old daughter, and a one year old son. I tell you this because it is actually my daughter that began to teach me this lesson while my family and I were driving to a friend’s house last week.  We had to drive over some rolling hills to get there.  On the way down one of the hills my daughter screams “Look out for the water!” I was startled because we were living in the desert and their was not an once of water to be seen for miles. She continued to say, “Here we go under water.” After I heard her say that I settled down a bit. Apparently between the first hill and our present location she transformed into a Submarine Captain.  I wish she would have let me know so that I wouldn’t have almost run our car off the road, but she didn’t. She didn’t have to. She was imagining.  She had transformed her surrounding into something greater than they were.

That got my mind thinking. What would I have said or done if my wife would have screamed the same thing? “Look out for the water!” followed by “Here we go under the water.” I probably would have turned my head and looked at her with the strangest look I could muster.  We just don’t do that.  We are adults, and because of that unfortunate condition, we can’t do that.  That thought got me asking this question. Why not?

What do you think of when you hear the word “Imagination?” I would think that most of you immediately went for something childlike, maybe Disney, Reading Rainbow (one of my faves), or some meaningless Saturday morning rabble that keeps your kids out of your hair long enough for you to brush your teeth.   Maybe the concept in whole seems childish?  I don’t know how many times I have let my mind wander, and for those of you who know me know that is quite often, toward what could have been amazing places but I will never know because as quickly as I start to wander off my “good sense” tells me “You’re an adult, snap out of it, you need to focus.  You don’t have time for this.” I go back to my day to day and feel guilty that even started to imagine something beyond myself.

I am beginning to realize that this is a learned condition. A condition drilled in by expectations, goals, and responsibilities. Now I am not at all saying that those things are bad. The truth is that as adults we are responsible for so much more than we were when we were kids, and it is tough to rationalize the “childish” behavior of imagination. What I’m learning is that there is a reason that God gave us the ability to imagine. It is not, or at least shouldn’t be, a gift that is wasted on the young. It is our imagination that breathes life into ideas, progress, and it is our imagination that gives us vision into the hope that we received from Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.

Unlike John (in the book of Revelation) we were not given a vision of what a life lived in eternity with Christ will be like.  All we have is his description, that in his own admission was hard to describe.  We are asked as readers to take John’s description and allow it to fuel our imagination.  There are so many mysteries that God has presented us with. I believe that He gave us this gift for so much more than becoming submarine captains in a barren desert or coming up with the next great invention or the next Reality TV show to take over the airwaves. It is a precious gift that was given to us for incredible purpose.  If we willingly put aside our ability to imagine we will not only become grumpy adults that are no fun to be around, but we will more importantly lose our sense of wonder and hope.