Held Hostage

Held Hostage

Driving to work, I see the traffic backing up before I even get close to the interstate. I sigh and look at my all-knowing Iphone for direction. Taking a back road, I quickly realize that there is no way around this mess. Again, I whisper, held hostage, by this road I travel to and from work. Later in the day my phone flashes a message from a friend telling me she introduced a mutual friend to the song, Fear is a Liar, by Zach Williams. I smile and think back to my description of the traffic I sit in often. That it is a robber of time and holds me hostage while I try to get to work and back to my family. The connection is made and once again Savior gives me peace about my journey.

I started in banking back in 2010 and like most people that work in retail banking, I was taught about products, customer service, and most importantly, how to be robbed safely. In banking, 1 in every 5 employees will be in an actual robbery or that is what I was told and sitting in break rooms or water cooler moments, I’ve heard a lot of those 1 in 5 moments. I too, am 1 in five. One thing that stands out in these trainings are the stories. Normally when the instructor starts to tell us how to remain calm and to get the robber out as quickly and quietly as possible, they will begin to share stories about some memorable robberies. It is in that moment that you learn that no matter who you are, no one knows how they will react when a robber walks in. Whether you’re a seasoned employee of 20 plus years that walks away from a note handed and leave the building, saying it is your lunch time, thus leaving a younger less experienced person to deal with the now angry robber, the tough branch manager that hides in their office while the new part time teller takes over the situation and calmly does what is expected, or the operations leader that has spent the better most of her career teaching branches how to enter the building securely, breaks her own rules, and finds herself stripped down to her necessities, tied up in a vault, during a well-planned “morning glory” robbery. We all have our own story, our own private moments when we break down after the ugly has taken place, our own pep talk to return to work, and then there are those, that never recover and resign .

Another part of training is what to do if the bank robber wants to take you hostage. This is where the instructor says, we can’t tell you what to do, but we recommend that you don’t go. Years later, I sat in a classroom full of women at a women in business, luncheon and listened as a detective had a different recommendation. He said, never let them take you to crime scene number two. Now don’t get me wrong, neither is wrong. The bank cannot tell an employee how to react to a robbery, but the detective is empowered to tell you not to end up becoming crime scene number two. The detective told us to put up a fight and that most of the time the “bad guy” will flee. Sound familiar?

Open your imagination with me for a moment and let fear become a bank robber, a mugger, a bad guy, and fear now wants to take you hostage, after robbing you. Never, let fear hold you hostage at crime scene 2. That my friends, is where you will die. Fear holds you there, preventing you from doing or being who God wants you to be. It is the enemy’s greatest weapon. His greatest demon. Fear as a bad guy has many of us held hostage at crime scene 2 and that is where we will die with friendships unmade due to a fear of relationship, ministries unbuilt due to a fear of failure, books unwritten due to insecurities. (Pause, deep breath…that last one was for me dear friends….) 

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

James 4:7

Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.  For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.  Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.”

– Eph 6.11-13

Like the detective said, resist the bad guy and he will, in most cases, flee. You see the bad guy is afraid of being arrested and he only wants to take what he came for and leave. When you resist, this adds to his time line and he will leave. The same is true of Fear, when we put on the full armor of God, by studying His word, living His message, believing in Christ as our Savior, the enemy, Fear, will flee. We resist the enemy by calling on the name of Jesus for power, when fear has stripped us of security. The power comes from a relationship with Christ and through that relationship we can leave crime scene number two, no longer held hostage by the fear that prevents us from being who we are called to be in the army of Christ our King.

When we are faced with a bad situation, we don't know how we will react. We can't anticipate what fear will do to us in the moment and for years after. The years after can either be the moment we escape or the time we are held hostage at crime scene number two.

Today, open God’s holy Word, put on the full armor and do what you are called to do. Don’t be afraid to steo over the ledge. Christ will carry you, catch you, and Fear, will flee.

Jesus, my Savior, today I admit that I am held hostage by the fear of my insecurities. I pray you deliver me from crime scene number two, away from fear and into the life I am called to live through you. Amen