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Fearing God
Fear brought me to God—then led me away
Growing up in the Southern Baptist church, I experienced a peculiar type of dread that only those with a similar upbringing will truly understand. I recall vividly a time I came home to find the whole house dark and eerily silent. A sudden terror gripped my heart. “Oh shit,” I thought to myself. “The Rapture!” Eventually, my fear subsided when, one-by-one, my family members returned. My brother Andy was out playing basketball. Dad had a late meeting. Mom was at the grocery store. To my relief, not a single one of them had been called up to the bosom of the good Lord Jesus, leaving me behind to face the unfathomable suffering of the Tribulation.
Years later, I told my brother about this and found out he would get the same sinking feeling whenever he came home to an empty house. Why were we afraid? We were both “saved.” We came forward as the organist played “Just As I Am” and professed our faith. We said the prayer. We put on white robes and got dunked before the congregation.
These rituals were supposed to bring us peace, but they didn’t.
I don’t remember precisely what was going through my mind at the time I decided to ask Jesus to be my “Lord and personal Savior.” I was very young— maybe 10 or 11—but I do recall there was fear involved. The anxiety I felt afterward is a bit more…
