Afraid you may run out of minutes? Dear God, help us.

[This essay takes a few twists and turns, so get ready for a ride.]

What do you fear?
Oddly enough, the adrenaline rush of fear is something that actually draws us to it. Just look at the popularity of high risk sports (of "extreme" sports). Roller coasters are another easy example. The more scary the ride, the greater the draw for the adrenaline junkie. Scary movies are right there, too, pulling in money hand over fist, because people love to be afraid.
But only to a certain point.

There are larger and more constant fears that non-adrenaline junkies experience every day: war, economic depression, terrorism, child-molesting kidnappers, crazed gunmen walking into our schools and churches and other public buildings and shooting people down for no rational reason.

But we are also afraid of a thousand other things. We are afraid of the dark, of spiders, of loud noises, of strangers, of public speaking, of snakes, of being struck by lightning, of being "found out"; of being alone, of being in a crowd, of small cramped places, of wide open spaces, of heights, of water, of germs, of cancer, of ....
So many people have so many fears.

Just today, during a conversation with my wife, I realized there is yet another thing to fear in this society: "running out of minutes"! -- on your calling plan. Gasp!

Recently, I scaled back our expenditures on telecommunications by changing from Verizon to Vonage [good idea, by the way] for our local and long distance service. I replaced a plan that allowed unlimited calls/minutes for a much less expensive plan that allows 500 minutes per month. That sounds reasonable to me, you see, but my wife ... well, she began to behave strangely. She gradually became stressed out and eventually somewhat hostile toward me within the first few hours after I told her I had made the switch. It was obvious that something was wrong with her delicate and unfathomable psyche. So, I steeled myself for the conversation I didn't want to have, and then asked, gingerly, with wincing eyes: "What's wrong honey?" After the usual verbal ping-pong match, where I try to guess what is bothering her and she tries to remember why she married me, she finally admitted straight out that she was afraid she "might run out of minutes" before she runs out of month.

... Seriously.

I tried to use rationale thoughts to calm her fears, but to no avail, at least, not initially. But I didn't give up, because ... its my duty, by God, to try to calm my wife's irrational fears. About five minutes into this important conversation, she confessed that her real fear was that when we ran out, I would blame her for chatting away all our minutes -- and then "What?", I asked her, "... chop you into tiny pieces and ship you to Cleveland in a suitcase?"

Probably not, I assured her. Almost certainly not. Anyway, she was tense and kind of grumpy and uneasy about it all day. That's not pathetic, spoiled and childish, is it?
My goodness, I said to my wife, "do you hear yourself? Get some perspective", I urged her. You're not worrying that we will run out of food to feed our children. You're not talking about having a dispute with our landlord and getting thrown into the street. You're not even worried that we may have our electricity shut off. You are "afraid" that we may run out of pre-authorized and pre-paid "minutes" for talking on the telephone. Jesus, please help us. "Besides", I explained to her, "once we run out -- if we do (and I don't think we will) -- we will still be able to make calls and talk on the telephone. The only difference will be that our telephone conversations beyond the first 500 minutes each month will cost four cents per minute (actually 3.9 cents) more than the first five hundred."

Here is the bottom line. We were talking about a service that we don't really need anyway. That is, if you define need the way God does, instead of the way the average 15 year-old economically spoiled American child defines need. Here's a scary idea: If our land line phone service runs out of minutes, we will fall back to our cell phones for the last few days of the month, and if they run out of minutes, we can do something VERY old-fashioned: borrow the neighbor's phone in an emergency -- or, God forbid, actually go down to the convenience store and use the pay phone! Inconvenient maybe, but a reason to be "afraid". I don't think so, honey.

Do you know what one of the greatest benefits of being a true believer (in Jesus) is? No fear. As Christians we have the power to be free from that favorite tool of the enemy: fear. Now, just to be clear, I did not just say we are all free of fear. I said we can be -- we have the power to be free from it (by faith -- by believing the truth), in stark contrast to unbelievers, for whom it is impossible to be free from fear. At least theoretically -- no, theologically -- there is supposed to be a stark contrast.

No Fear! That should be the refrain we hear habitually from Christian believers. No fear. No fear!
Fear nothing, other than God, himself.

I can hear Dr. Phil now, asking my wife: "... and on a scale of 1 to 10, with ten being more fear and one being less, where do you rank not having caller ID?"
... Ohhoo! That high? Well, don't you worry, darlin'. I think I have a psychiatrist friend who may just be able to help you work through those telephone issues."

Come on! Sometimes professing Christians just embarrass the snot out of me.

I have what I think is a helpful and friendly suggestion: If you run out of minutes, just get over it -- quickly ... and then move on with your lives! Please. If the fear of running out of minutes has the ability to ruin your day, you need to find a more effective medication, and then maybe go live in another country for a while. I suggest one in Africa, Central America or Southeast Asia. By the time you get back from your trip, I can almost guarantee that your "fear of running out of minutes" will seem silly.

Affectionately, but firmly,
--Mr. Grumpy


P.S. Please excuse the heavy sarcasm ... or just sit back and enjoy it.