The sin we have all committed.

A farmer met with the spirit of death.

He met with the spirit of death on his way and a conversation brewed between them. Death informed the farmer about his horrid plans to take the lives of people in his village. The farmer heard this and became instantly aggrieved. He tried to persuade Death to spare the people but see, this spirit was persistent and had a great desire to annex those lives.

“Okay” the farmer finally agreed, as the fire in death’s eyes was bright enough to make him blind. “but…you would only take five persons in my village”

Death heard this and pondered over it for a few minutes. The idea didn’t sound too bad and so he agreed. As long as he could take the lives of people for himself, he was satisfied.

“Okay” he said, indulging the farmer.

A few hours later, the report came like a whirlwind to the ears of the farmer that a hundred people had died in his village. The farmer was furious and extremely livid at why Death wasn’t even strong enough to keep his promise. And so he met with the spirit of death again, this time, with fire in his own eyes, “Five people. We agreed that you were only going to take five people. Why add ninety-five more?!”

The spirit of death kept his face neutral as though he had seen this all before. He stared at the farmer and waited for him to finish. When he was done lamenting, Death opened his mouth and said, “I kept my promise. I kept to my side of the deal. I only took five”

The farmer stared angrily at Death and was about to ask him what he meant but Death continued, “I only took five, Fear of me took the rest”

I pondered over that story the moment it left the mouth of our pastor. I wondered how many people had died, not because they ought to, but because they were scared it was going to happen. I wondered how many things had come upon us, just like Job, because we feared that they would.

I think that fear causes more damage than the threat or situation itself.

I think that we might have mastered the ugly art of negotiating with the spirit of fear. And I think that has stopped quite a number of things from actualizing.

The fear of being seen? The fear of being consistent? The fear of failure? The fear of losing someone? The fear of being afraid? Too many but, evident enough to notice why we might have ended up not picking anything up because of the fear of it slipping from our grasp.

What if…what if when we pick it up, we hold a part of it tightly and hand the other part to God. I heard know his grip doesn’t falter. He will hold it!

And maybe one day, we’d realize that what we were scared of was merely the avoidance of how much we could do. And maybe we wouldn’t sin against God anymore by being afraid. Maybe we won’t tell Him to His face that we’re scared He might not be able to do it. Maybe we’ll just let Him.