Recently I was walking through the Old City of Jerusalem doing some errands.  I was walking on Christian Quarter Road, and all of a sudden, I heard this very loud, flapping sound, coming closer towards me.  I couldn’t see anyone.  But the sound got louder, and was only 1-2 yards away from me, and moving quickly towards me.  The acoustics in the alleyways of the Old City really amplify the sound.

My eyes are searching for the source of this noise.  I finally began to begin down, and suddenly this little thing, about 10 inches tall, runs past me.  I suddenly start to understand what is happening.  There was a little, mangy calico cat, who two punky teenaged boys had put a plastic bag on its ‘arms’, and the cat was totally freaked out by the sound of the plastic bag stuck to its back.  The faster the cat ran, the louder the noise was, and the more freaked out the cat was and on and on.  It was doing feline parkour, zig-zagging from side to side of the narrow Old City alleyway.  It looked a lot like this youtube clip, only in the Old City of Jerusalem:

For a split second, I have to admit, it was kind of funny.  Then I felt bad for the cat.  Then the Holy Spirit spoke something profound to me.  He said, ‘Angela, when you run in fear, you are just like this cat’.  Boom.

This real-time download from God is happening about 10 yards away from a section of  1^st century stones, where Jesus would have likely walked.  These stones were brought up from the 1^st century level to the current, modern level of the Old City.  The irony of the location begins to hit me.

There’s a ‘fear’ on my back.  Something that bothers me.  Something that is from an intelligent kingdom that wants to steal, kill destroy, and take my peace in the process.  Somehow, my human logic says if I move a little faster, I can get away from the fear and outrun it.  But the sound of fear gets louder in my ears.  The faster I run, the more panicked I am, and the louder the sound gets. I try to outrun it.  I fail.

I run and I run, and I run even faster.  It’s so exhausting.  Sometimes I slow down a bit, and I call a friend to pray with me (a pretty good idea).  I grab a book on fear and try to remember what I’ve heard 1,000 times (not a horrible idea).  I crack open the Bible and read my top 3 fear verses (a better idea).  Then I get distracted by life, and I start moving again, and begin to hear the scary sound of the plastic bag on my back.  I begin to run again.  Faster.

God’s grace (the divine influence on the human heart) reached out to me that day in the Old City alleyway.  I began to understand that I was tired of feeling like a mangy cat running in the Old City from a myriad of fears that there was a solution to.  The only way to really get rid of a ‘plastic bag’ of fear from your back, is to stop running, face it and then remove it.  J  Find a trusted friend to walk with you spiritually during this time where when you start to ‘run’ again, you can call and quickly pray.  Re-read all the fear scriptures you know until they are more than logos, but become rhema to you.  Then look for other people running from their fears and help them.

I went back this past week to the same Old City of Jerusalem street (Christian Quarter Road).   I  prayed and asked God to see a peaceful cat sitting in the middle of the same alleyway.  Just so you know, this is a rather unlikely sight.  But God was so gracious to me, and indeed, just where the other cat was, there was a perfectly content cat lounging on the stones within eyesight of the 1^st century stones that carried the physical body of Jesus, the ultimate fear-slayer.  So I had to take a picture to share with you:

You could be dealing with any number of fears, fears about how God is working (or seemingly not) in your life, fear of yourself and how are reacting to situations, maybe even fear of an enemy (who you could possibly even be related to!).  Whatever the fears are, don’t give them a free ride on your back and be a Fraidy-Cat!