If you have ever heard me teach or have read anything I write you know that I am absolutely terrified of spiders. With that in mind…
One day I was driving home and had pulled in my driveway and had hit the little button on my remote control that opens the garage door…and that’s when I felt something crawling up my leg.
I didn’t think that much of it until it bit me…and continued to bite me as it traveled past my knee and onto my thigh!!!
Then this thought hit me, “It’s a spider” and from that point I proceeded to lose my freakin’ mind!!!
I managed to put the car in park and leap out. I can’t exactly remember what I was saying…but it was somewhere along the lines of screaming for God to help me. (Yes, this REALLY happened.) I ran around in circles in my garage hitting my leg and finally decided to pull off my pants…which was a bit problematic since I had shoes on.
Before I knew it I was on the floor of my garage with no shoes and no pants on, still screaming and hitting myself all over my leg. (If heaven has youtube I promise you this scene of my life has been replayed over a million times!! It’s called, “Pastor Nearly Pee’s His Pants Over Spider!”)
I never found the spider (it’s probably still hiding in my garage somewhere…just waiting to launch another assault against me!) BUT…as I thought about the whole fiasco later on that night…this thought hit me…
WHATEVER I FEAR THE MOST CONTROLS ME THE MOST!
Seriously…I had allowed a spider to literally control my actions and my attitude…something so small literally made me act totally irrational and do things that hardly anyone would consider normal.
Which leads me to Proverbs 29:25 - ”Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD is kept safe.”
If I fear man…then he controls me.
What he says about me matters more than what God says about me.
His opinion can literally determine if I am in a good or bad mood.
What he says can control whether I feel good about myself or bad about myself.
And…in life and ministry there are simply too many people that are consumed and controlled by the fear of man. (These are the people who check their facebook wall more than the Scriptures to establish their identity!)
The Bible says in Proverbs 9:10 - “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”
Simply put…we are foolish to allow man’s opinion of us to override God’s opinion—period.
The BEST thing that God can bless us with is an ever increasing and accurate view of Himself…because as our view of Him INCREASES then our fear of man will DECREASE.
Whatever I fear controls me the most…so…who do you fear?