When I was a kid, I was terrified of quick sand. Quick sand. I was terrified of something from cartoons about treks in the jungle from the comfort of my coastal Georgia world. Quick sand.
In cartoons, and later in one of my favs The Princess Bride, quick sand (remember the fire swamp!) was all consuming. No matter how hard the victim fought or flailed or called out for help or grabbed vines as lifelines, they got sucked further and further down until they just disappeared. What creeped me out as a kid was not just the feeling of being sucked underground and basically drowning, but rather the fact that no amount of fighting, struggling, or working hard helped. Once stepped into, quick sand is the victor no matter how much the victim tries not succumb. The situation is instantaneously hopeless.
Hopelessness scares me even more than quick sand. The thought that no matter the work I pour into something it won’t do any good is a disconcerting possibility for me. Hopelessness is something I actively run from because to me it feels like failure.
Being in relationship with difficult people can feel like quick sand. And the optimist in me just can’t stop trying to beat getting sucked down into the hopelessness. No matter how dysfunctional the relationship, how poorly I feel I’m treated, or how irrationally the other person behaves (from my point of view), I just can’t help but keep working and scratching trying to find something to cling on to pull us out of the sinking. And so the relationship spirals deeper and deeper into the quick sand of frustration, hopelessness, and, sometimes, the sense of pending disaster.
If you’re like me, that possibility of disaster combined with how much you may fear hopelessness can foster a feeling a dread. And there is nothing quite like dreading dealing with those situation in life – or the people in life – you cannot walk away from. Dread can cause us to act our of fear, live with a sense of insecurity, or even attempt to totally avoid dealing with the situation.
Choose security over dread.
What the Bible tells us, though, is that dread is not of the Lord – even when that dread is understandable from our human point of view. In Proverbs, we’re reminded of what we should listen to.
“…but whoever listens to me will dwell secure and will be at ease, without dread of disaster.”
Proverbs 1:33
When I read that verse recently, I was stopped in my tracks. The thought of living the difficult relationships in life without “dread of disaster” was so freeing. When we let dread take over – dread of interactions, dread of the next challenge that is to come, dread of being made to feel like we don’t matter – we take our focus off the Lord. 2 Chronicles reminds me where my eyes should be fixed:
“For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you.”
2 Chronicles 20:12
So, when our eyes are fixed on the Lord and we listen to His calling, we can rest secure and at ease. The dread of disaster is promised to fade, regardless of how we may be attacked in difficult relationships. With our focus on the Lord, His goodness, and His care for even the small details in my life, we can rest with ease and confidence that even in the hard roads and situations in life, He is with us.
Dread may be your quick sand, too. Walking carefully through difficult relationships and situations in our lives, requires us to keep our eyes open and fixed on the Lord.
