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
