Forget the pancakes. Bambi was in trouble and my two-year-old granddaughter could think of nothing else during a recent visit to Cracker Barrel restaurant. Bambi was, after all, stuck in the wall and perhaps even missing his hindquarters. Serious stuff.
One forgets that a two-and-a-half-year-old may not have seen many, or even any, mounted deer heads in her short life. And it’s easy to underestimate the profound effect Disney cartoons can have on a young psyche. No telling how many PETA activists cut their animal-rights-crusading teeth on “Bambi.”
So, when Edda saw “Bambi” up there above the restaurant fireplace, she got pretty worked up about it, to say the least.
My daughter-in-law sent me a text describing the scene: “…Edda kept saying, ‘It’s Bambi! Why is he stuck? Where are his legs??!!’” She relentlessly asked those two questions over and over, with increasing urgency and volume, not understanding why she was the only one concerned about the poor deer.
Finally, my son and daughter-in-law hit upon the magic, calming explanation: “It’s pretend Bambi.”
Edda calmed down immediately and acted like, “Oh. PRETEND Bambi. Why didn’t you say so? Okay, back to my pancakes.”
Mercy, that child makes me laugh. And sometimes she makes me think, too, and this is what I thought about the Cracker Barrel Bambi story: Things are often not as they seem on the surface.
That brings to mind an acrostic I saw for the word “fear” that goes like this: False Evidence Appearing Real. Certainly, sometimes fear is absolutely based on reality. But sometimes, it isn’t. Sometimes we get ourselves all worked up over nothing at all, over “false evidence” that appears real.
Sometimes, Bambi isn’t actually stuck in the wall.
(Note: Never mind that Cracker Barrel Bambi’s situation was even more grim than being stuck in a wall. He was, after all, dead as a doornail. Like all analogies, this one breaks down if pressed too far.)
Life frequently looks scary, especially in these times of economic uncertainty, political turbulence, and devastating natural disasters, but over and over in the Bible, Christians are told, “Fear not.” That can sometimes be a tall order, but if we profess to believe God is in ultimate control of our lives, we must remember this: there is always more to the story for us than what we see with our eyes.
We’re not at the mercy of random chance or other people. God calls the final shots for us.
The diagnosis might be wrong, the condition might change, the situation might turn around, the relationship might be restored.
There’s a mind-blowing story in the Old Testament book of 2 Kings (chapter 6) that reminds us that what we see is not all there is. In this account, the Arameans have sent a powerful army to apprehend the pesky Hebrew prophet Elisha. The army of Aramea sneaks in one night and surrounds the house where Elisha is staying. The prophet’s servant awakes in the morning, discovers they are surrounded, and panics.
“Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them,” Elisha assures his servant. And then he prays for God to open the servant’s eyes to see what’s really going on.
God does: “And the Lord opened the servant’s eyes and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.”
Seems God had an army there, too—one that was as real as it was invisible.
When we’re facing overwhelming circumstances and odds, we need to stop and ask God to open our eyes to what’s really going on.
Maybe Bambi isn’t really stuck in the wall after all. Maybe we can relax and get back to our pancakes.