Some people get startled more easily than others. It doesn’t take much for me to jump when someone happens to show up in my office without me hearing them come in or seeing them out of the corner of my eye.

I don’t know why it is; I’m not a nervous person. But if someone appears out of nowhere and even says “hi”, whoa, that gets my heart pumping fast.

I remember years ago when I was a youth pastor, we would play a game called “Sardines”. It was a version of hide and seek, where we would turn out all the lights in the church, making it pitch black dark.

One person was “it” and his job was to hide. Everyone else tried to find him and then hide with him in the dark until there was just one person looking for the whole group.

During the game, I took it as my job to scare the life out of the junior high girls. I would go in a room and wait for a pack of girls to enter. They could see nothing but, of course, they couldn’t stop talking.

At a quiet moment, I would yell at the top of my lungs and, though I couldn’t see them, I knew by their reaction they had hit their heads on the ceiling they had been scared so badly … but that was a long time ago.

A few weeks ago, Lily and I were sleeping, pretty much sound asleep, when there was a loud crash. It woke both of us up. I definitely was started, but Lil … I thought she was going to have a coronary!

She couldn’t calm down after that; she was concerned that someone might be in the house. I tried to convince her that everything was alright, but nothing would get her to settle until I checked the house.

So I went to get up and that’s when I saw what had startled us and ruined our sleep. It was a wood valance that was over our closet doors. Apparently, the manufacturers thought that 3M made a double-sided tape that was strong enough to hold up a 6 foot light piece of wood … forever.

For whatever reason, the tape lost its grip in the middle of the night – at 1:57 am to be precise.

Though I wasn’t startled nearly as badly as Lily, being woken up at that time in that way got my mind going and I had a very difficult time getting back to sleep.

I think for Lily, her heart rate shot up so high so fast that it exhausted her and she fell back asleep rather quickly.

The effects of being startled don’t last a long time, but it probably take a few years off your life every time it happens. So my advice is be aware – always.

Here’s the thing: There is going to be a time when either we die or Christ returns that will definitely be startling. It will shake us all to the core, but the only way you will be able to get calm after that, the only way you will get peace is to know Jesus Christ as your saviour. Otherwise, that startle will be just the beginning of an eternity of fear. I suggest you prepare now if you haven’t already. Find out about Christ, who He is, what He did and how He can change your life.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What startles you? Leave your comment below.