“For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” 2 Timothy 1:7

As you may know, the “spirit of fear” can make you do things that you wouldn’t ordinarily do. Years ago, before we moved to Haiti, Bobby preached on the street corners and in a lot of African American churches. We loved preaching there so much because we loved the people. We loved the services and we loved how they worshipped God! It was some of the best times of our lives!!

During this time, we met an Evangelist called “Dr. Pott.” He was a big, big man and he loved to cook! He would always come over to our house and want to cook, but he always left a big mess to clean up! We didn’t mind because he sure could cook. We gave him a little room to sleep in, but we found out that he would sleep on the floor in front of the TV set, which was going full blast. When we asked him why he didn’t sleep in the bed, he said, “Because I’m afraid of the dark!” We never could figure that out because he was a great preacher!

One day, he asked to borrow our little car to go to Orlando. That was about sixty miles from us, and we said, “No problem.” He took our little, tiny car and headed out towards the “Beeline Expressway” to Orlando. We soon got a call from the Highway Patrol. The nice officer wanted us to know that this black preacher was in our car, inside the trunk, with the lid up on the side of the road! The police officer said that the preacher was scared to death. He had a flat tire, so he pulled over and opened the trunk lid to get a jack, and all of a sudden, he saw a Florida “armadillo!” He then crawled into the trunk, and that’s when the officer found him! We explained that he had borrowed our car and was probably scared of the armadillo because he had never seen one!!

Late that evening, Dr. Pott came in all shaken up. That little creature had scared him half to death. He had been in the trunk a long time, jacked up on watching the armadillo and waiting for it to go away. He had been there for hours when the patrolman came by! The little creature was ugly looking but certainly no threat to a big human! We laughed at Dr. Pott, but what a lesson about fear! God has not given us the “spirit of fear,” but the spirit of “power, and of love, and of a sound mind!!”

Have a great day!!!

Sherry