"Do not be afraid…the LORD will be with you.’”—2Chronicles 20:17
A number of years ago, when our son Brian was very small, I took him with me to pick up a babysitter. As I approached the house where our sitter lived I noticed that their dog, usually penned in the back yard, was lying on the front porch in front of the door.
The dog looked benign, but to my alarm he sprang to his feet and attacked Brian, who leaped for my leg, shinnied up my back and somehow ended up wrapped around my head and shoulders.
I, on the other hand, was left to fend off the dog that now turned his full attention to me.
The dog and I danced for a while—I trying to get in a kick and he a bite—until, to my relief, the dog’s owner came around the house and called off the beast. All of us—boy, dog and I—escaped relatively unscathed.
Later, as we were walking to the car, Brian looked up at me and said, “Dad, I’ll go anywhere with you.”
His confidence was misplaced, of course, for I lucked out on that occasion, but I’ve often thought of those words when I’m called upon to enter frightening circumstances or face furious assaults. “Father, I’ll go anywhere with you.”
Anywhere, anywhere! Fear I cannot know;
Anywhere with Jesus I can safely go.
David Roper
6.26.21
