Our Response to Threats
Think of a time in which you felt threatened. The threat being either real or perceived. Whether or not you knew it, at that moment your body was deciding whether to fight, flight, or freeze in response to that threat. This fight-flight-freeze response is our body’s natural reaction to danger. As the threat is processed in the part of our brain that is responsible for perceiving fear, changes in our body functions occur, hormones are released, all of which help us response appropriately and rapidly. Whether we fight or flight is driven by our sympathetic nervous system while the freeze response comes from the parasympathetic (rest and digest) nervous system.
We face threats of all kinds all the time. It could be a threat from an abusive person. Major health issues threaten us. Financial or employment threats. Weather-related threats. Not to mention snakes, from which I instantly run, fast and far. There isn’t a rest and digest thought in me when I am in the vicinity of slithering serpents.
There are times when it is best to stay and duke it out with the threat. Other times, get the heck out of dodge. The phrase “get out of dodge” most popularly came from the fictionalized myth surrounding a real-life frontier town. Dodge City, Kansas, was a busy cattle town that was notorious in the late 19th century for saloons, gunfights, gambling, brothels. The long running television series Gunsmoke centered on Dodge City and Marshal Matt Dillon often ran bad guys out of town, saying “get out of Dodge.”
In many situations, we can run and hide, but somehow the threat still finds us. The bully always seems to find us. We can run from medical challenges, financial woes, relational strife, but those things do not disappear off the radar simply because we flee.
Sometimes, no matter how hard we try, we cannot get out of the grip of the threat. King David had one such moment. His son Absalom very much despised his father and did everything in his power to both disgrace and threaten him. It appears that David’s sympathetic nervous system told him to flight (flee) and hide in a cave, possibly the same cave in which he had earlier hid from Saul. While it is very likely that David did hide in the cave to shelter himself from Absalom’s plots, I believe that he also went there to seek guidance and protection from his God, our God. Here is what King David prayed as he hunkered down in the cave, trusting in his Lord.
I have so many enemies, Lord, so many who turn against me! They talk about me and say, “God will not help him.” But you, O Lord, are always my shield from danger; you give me victory and restore my courage. I call to the Lord for help, and from his sacred hill he answers me. I lie down and sleep, and all night long the Lord protects me. I am not afraid of the thousands of enemies who surround me on every side. Come, Lord! Save me, my God! You punish all my enemies and leave them powerless to harm me. Victory comes from the Lord – may he bless his people (Psalm 3, GNT).
Today, and every day, whether your response to a pending threat is to fight, flight, or freeze, will you pray as King David did, trusting your Lord, your God, to be ever so close, leading, guiding, directing you, keeping you safe in His presence (Psalm 18:2), either safe from the threat or safe in the threat.
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