It was like any normal day, as I sat at work preparing things that I needed to do, when I saw my boss’s car pulling up next to the building. I could hear him unlocking and then locking the main door as he entered the office. It was for safety reasons that we kept the doors locked. I myself never felt unsafe at work, after all, I worked in a church, but our security team decided that we needed to keep the doors locked at all times. Which meant that any visitor wanting to enter the building would have to ring a doorbell. It seemed like overkill to me, but I wasn’t in charge and it wasn’t my decision.
As my boss walked past my office and toward his own, I greeted him with a wave and a good morning and then went back to work. With my hands midair, ready to bring my fingers down onto the computer keys, I suddenly heard the frantic voice of my boss calling out to me, “Cheryl, come here! Hurry, come here!”
The fear in his voice left me unsure of whether or not I wanted to follow his instructions of “coming here”. I hesitantly stood to my feet, curious and moving slowly toward the doorway of my office and out into the hallway, toward the direction of his voice, expecting to see something that I probably wasn’t going to want to see.
“What is this!” His panicked voice called out to me. “It looks like a bat!” He anxiously tried answering his own question. Hearing the word bat, sent thoughts of fleeing and screaming to my mind, but as my eyes glanced downward at the flapping wings near my boss’s feet, I immediately recognized that it was a moth and not a bat. A very large moth, but nonetheless, a moth.
There comes a time in your life when you know when to speak and when to shut up and this was one of those times when silence seemed the most appropriate. I wanted nothing more than to laugh and mock my boss’s emasculating behavior, but I was almost shocked to the point of being speechless. There before me stood my average sized boss, husband of one and father of two, frightened by a moth.
“It’s a moth,” I said non-reactive, taking every ounce of self-control within me, not to laugh. Any hint of respect I may have had for my boss, waned in that moment.
“It’s the biggest moth I’ve ever seen!” He finished.
Step by step I walked cautiously, more frightened of my boss’s behavior than the rather large moth flapping my way, looking nothing like the bat that my boss had envisioned.
It was an awkward situation as I didn’t want to emasculate my boss any further by being heroic, but at the same time, I knew I needed to get the moth outdoors, and so while my boss was walking away from the moth, I found myself walking toward it, fearless and still shocked by my boss’s behavior.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to touch a moth’s wings,” I commented to my boss. I wasn’t sure how true that was, but somewhere in the file of useless knowledge stored in my brain, I was certain that I’d heard that touching a moth’s wings would kill it.
“Let’s get a bucket,” my boss practically ran up the hallway with me quick on his heels to retrieve a bucket from the utility closet. Both of us finding the bucket and dustpan necessary to gather the moth.
Somewhere during the walk back to the moth, my boss seemed to gain some self-respect as he knelt, taking matters into his own hands, trying to coax the moth into the bucket, as he (my boss that is) put up a good front of trying to be courageous. Alas, chivalry was not dead and I was seeing it in action as I fought back the laughter building within me, seeing my boss jumping backwards every time the moth flapped its wings. Eventually my boss triumphed and the bat-sized moth was now in the bucket.
As both of us made our way toward the outdoors, I opened the main door with my boss closely behind, removing the dustpan from the opening of the bucket and releasing (rather dumping) the moth onto the ground.
We stood together watching the beautiful moth, walking without effort along the pavement when our co-worker and his little boy came toward us.
My boss excitedly explained how he’d found the moth and had managed to get it into the bucket and safely outdoors, leaving out the part about him mistaking it for a bat, as well as the part about him being frightened of a moth.
The conversation between my boss and our co-worker went on for a few minutes, as we all admired the beautiful moth in a more natural element.
It was then that our co-worker’s two year old son, curiously walked toward the moth. His tiny little legs, hidden mostly by rain boots.
“See the moth.” My boss’s voice trying to mimic that of a child’s, as he bravely pointed out the moth to our co-worker’s two year old son. What a brave front my boss was displaying as he cautiously introduced the moth to our co-worker’s son.
Lifting one foot midair, our co-worker’s son brought his boot down on that beautiful moth, before any of us had a chance to react.
“Kill, kill, kill” his toddler voice proudly displaying his triumph over the now dead moth as he eagerly presented the skills he’d been taught by his mother, to kill, kill, kill any bugs that got inside their house.
All the pent-up laughter from earlier, came out of me like an erupting volcano. In less than ten minutes, I saw a grown man, frightened by a moth, only to have a two year old toddler approach that same moth without one hint of fear.
My boss and co-worker joined me nervously in laughter, not sure how to react to what had just taken place.
With the building safe and secure from moths, my boss and I walked back toward the building, only to realize that we’d locked ourselves out. Thankfully, our co-worker had his keys on hand and unlocked the security door for us, before taking his son home for a nap.
Once inside, with doors locked from any possible intruders, moths included, my boss walked toward his office, as I found myself rethinking my position about keeping the doors locked. After all, I never knew when a moth might get into the office, and with my co-worker’s little boy down for a nap, keeping the doors locked seemed like a pretty good idea. I could almost envision myself being trampled under my boss’s fleeing feet, from any future intruders. Now whether or not that would have ever been the case, the thought assuredly did cross my mind.
Now the moral of this very true story is simple:
Courage is not decided upon by stature, age or even a person’s gender. I am pretty sure it’s decided upon by faith and how big we know that our God is. My co-worker’s little boy felt assured that he had the power to kill any bugs that invaded his parent’s home. He wasn’t afraid because he’d never been taught to be afraid. Maybe that has a little something to do with why Jesus said in Matthew 18:3, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Faith is required and faith is acquired simply by believing. We have a big God and He can do big things, so fear should never be our first reaction. I can admit that when seeing a mouse, I feel my heart beating instinctively with the desire to flee inevitable. In truth, I could outrun the fastest of athletes, should I ever spy a mouse. However, there comes a time when we all must overcome our fears, plant our feet firmly and trust that God will protect us.
1 Samuel 17:45-46, David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. 46 This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands . . .
For those not familiar with David and Goliath, David was a young shepherd boy who defeated goliath (his much bigger opponent) with one simple stone. He had conquered, where his much stronger allies had failed because David trusted God.
So, whether your giants are in the form of a moth, mouse or Philistine, remember one thing, the size of your courage depends on whether or not you trust and believe in God’s power to get you through anything. It’s having that childlike faith where nothing is impossible, until someone else tells you that it is . . .