In the 1950s, After Church and a big Sunday dinner, we’d walk to the Beacon Theatre on 30th & Ames to catch the matinee. On the way home we’d discuss which would be worst; be crushed by Frankenstein, or captured by the Creature from the Black Lagoon, or to be bitten by Dracula, or eaten by the Wolf man? The Creature from the black Lagoon gave me nightmares. I swear I saw his head slowly rising into view out my bedroom window! I would pull the covers up over my head and pray! I reminded myself that nothing and no one was more powerful than God.
Israel’s worst case scenario actually befell them. They were conquered by their own Creature from the Black Lagoon – the Babylonians. They had forgotten their God but the pain of their experience drove them back to Him. They reminded themselves, like I did, that God was more powerful than their enemy. Psalm 74 is their prayer. Maybe they had the blankets pulled up over their heads too. They prayed, “It was you who split open the sea by your power; you broke the heads of the monster in the waters. It was you who crushed the heads of Leviathan and gave it as food to the creatures of the desert. It was you who opened up springs and streams; you dried up the ever-flowing rivers. The day is yours, and yours also the night; you established the sun and moon. It was you who set all the boundaries of the earth; you made both summer and winter.”
I’m not afraid of the Creature from the Black Lagoon anymore. But I still imagine worst case scenarios. Don’t you? Cancer, Heart attack, aneurisms, are all creatures I’m afraid might attack me or my loved ones along with a number of other catastrophes; professional, personal, social, etc. It’s really great to remember that it’s God who “broke the heads of monsters” in Israel’s day, and does so for us in our day as well.
“Since God is for us, who can be against us.”
Chuck
“The humble will see their God at work and be glad. Let all who seek God’s help be encouraged. For the Lord hears the cries of the needy; he does not despise his imprisoned people.” (Psalm 69:32-33)