In the movie Secretariat, when the chestnut horse of the same name comes into the last stretch at the Belmont Stakes, there’s a pause in the music (brilliant move by director Randall Wallace, one of my favorite writers, directors and producers), and a narrator reads a portion of Job, which references a horse, “It laughs at fear, afraid of nothing . . .” (Job 39:22).
At this point in the movie, against all odds, Secretariat is
about to become the first triple-crown winner in twenty-five years, winning the
Belmont Stakes by an unbelievable thirty-one lengths. The tagline for the film
is “The impossible true story.”
I recently finished a Bible study on Gideon written
by Priscilla Shirer. In the last
video, she prays over the participants so that fear might be broken, because
really, that was the bottom line on Gideon’s story. With God’s help, he
overcame fear to beat men who were "as numerous as the sand on the seashore" (Perhaps over 100,000) with only 300 men. Another “impossible true story.”
A statement she made during the study continues to ring in
my ears. “God doesn’t call us to hard things. He calls us to impossible
things.”
We’re so inclined to do it ourselves even if it’s hard, but God
will allow us to get in impossible circumstances. When we can't do it ourselves, we cry out to him,
and the glory only goes to Him for the results.
But we need to deal with that fear thing.
In Home to Currahee, one of the themes is “Do it afraid.”
Often, God asks us to move ahead, despite what we’re actually feeling.
Don’t you want to have the courage of that horse God spoke
about in Job―to laugh at fear? And don’t
you want to run your race like the triple-crown winner Secretariat, whose
thundering hooves might still echo along the track at Belmont, and whose world
record time has never been touched? Would you rise up like Gideon and get your
300 together to win a battle over the Midianites, even if God sends you out with
the unlikely weapons of just a pitcher and a trumpet?
Don’t you want to do impossible things?
I think we all just shouted “Yes.”
God has an “impossible true story” for each of us.
And to live that story, we have to decide fear will not,
must not win.
"Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt his name together. I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears" (Psalm 34:3-4).
"Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt his name together. I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears" (Psalm 34:3-4).