The Nature of Fear

I met with a friend who was willing to help me understand Microsoft Word better. The book I am editing is a "Word document", and I am very computer un-savy. Besides that, my document was composed on an iPad using a "Pages" word processing program, and then converted to a Word document to send to my laptop for editing. In the process, most of the document converted just fine, but there are some codes in Pages that apparently Word just doesn't quite understand. It is sort of like trying to understand what a parrot is saying when he is imitating human language...sometimes it comes out as "Polly haunts a slacker". Close, but not quite right, and if you aren't accustomed to talking with Parrots, sometimes it is impossible to comprehend.

For example, I had a line of asterisks at the bottom of two of my pages that I could not delete. It was like they were possessed. I could click on the text above the line of asterisks or below the line of asterisks, and easily delete those...but could not click *on* the line of asterisks themselves. I could delete the entire document, and still, that haunted line of asterisks remained. Filled with fear that I would ruin everything trying to correct that one thing, I gave up. The book would just have to be published with those strange lines of asterisks that I hadn't asked to be there, and didn't want to be there, but was too ignorant and fearful to remove.

Well my friend Brian is a computer genius. He could format a word document while hanging upside down with his eyes closed and his wrists bound together. He is a consummate teacher and loves what computers can do, and wished very much to show me that I should no longer be fearful and repulsed by Microsoft Word. For two hours, he showed me amazing things, miraculous things, things one just cannot believe an inanimate object could manage. Half of the problems of my document were wiped away with a single key stroke! He knew instantly what the haunted asterisks were, and knew just how to solve the problem of deleting them. And then he urged me, all by myself despite fear and trembling, to hit the key that removed the second haunted line of asterisks.
And I did it! All by myself! Praise God! (and Brian!)

Of course, when he first started to mess around with the book that I have been laboring over for years, I sweetly warned him, "Remember, if you hurt this document, I will have to torch your home."
"It is saved," he assured me, "Any changes I make, if we don't like them, we shut the program, and it will revert to your saved document."
"Ok, but I am scared...." I whimpered.
He looked surprised, "Don't be scared! Look we will make a copy to play with so you don't have to be nervous."

And while I was on pins and needles the whole time wondering if my document would survive, I needn't have been. Brian is expert, and not only improved my document but showed me how to do many wonderful improvements myself. He told me often over the two hours that the very best way to learn to do this was to practice, learn the key shortcuts, play with the program. I told him I was always so afraid to do anything for fear of losing the whole document. He patiently showed me there are ways to insure that doesn't happen.

Later, I thought about not only all I had learned about Microsoft Word, but also about the nature of fear. Fear quite often arises out of what we don't understand or the unfamiliar. I remember the first time I kayaked, I was terrified. The boat rocked in such an unfamiliar way, I was certain I would be dumped in the river. With experience, I learned that kayaks rock, but it is very hard to tip over a flat water kayak. Had I succumbed to my fears, I would never have taken up one of my favorite things to do in the whole wide world.

The Bible is giving important advice when it warns us that God has not given us a spirit of fear. It may be an inconsequential thing, overcoming the fear of word processing programs, but the underlying lesson is important. There are certainly legitimate things to fear, but fear can be a tool of Satan that keeps us from doing what we should be doing to better ourselves, better the world, and better our Word documents.

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For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. (II Timothy 1:7 NKJV)





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