I Am A Grown Man And It Frightens Me

You have never said it out loud.

Not to a friend, not to anybody you live with, not once in a conversation where it would have been easy. You have had chances. You have stood in kitchens with people while somebody was cutting something, and the moment went past, and you said nothing.

Because the sentence would be: I am frightened of the big knife.

And you can hear how that lands. You can hear the pause, and the small laugh that is not unkind but is a laugh, and then the reassurance, which is worse than the laugh.

So it stays inside, and outside there is a workaround. You get things ready chopped. You offer to do the other jobs. You are extremely useful in a kitchen in every way that does not involve a blade, and nobody has ever noticed, and the not being noticed is the whole architecture.

So let me say the first thing plainly, before anything practical.

This is a real fear and nothing here is going to laugh at it.

There is no version of this article where a grown man being frightened of a knife is funny, or unusual, or a sign of anything at all about him. A blade is genuinely dangerous. A body that does not want to hold one is not malfunctioning, and the only strange thing in this whole situation is that you have had to carry it alone.

What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee

There is a line in the Psalms that says the word afraid without any embarrassment at all.

What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee. (Psalm 56:3, King James Version)

What time I am afraid.

It is said plainly, by a grown man, in writing, in a book that gets read aloud. There is no hedging in it and no apology, and nothing anywhere in the sentence suggests that being afraid was a thing he needed to get past before he was allowed to speak.

And it is not a hypothetical. What time I am afraid assumes there will be such times, repeatedly, as an ordinary feature of a life.

You are in a sentence that Scripture says out loud without embarrassment, and a fear a man has never admitted has never once been a thing he was wrong to have. Psalm 56:3 puts the word afraid in a grown man's mouth with no hedging, and the Holy Spirit is the one present with somebody who has stayed quiet in a lot of kitchens.

And look at the shape of what follows, because it is not what people expect.

What time I am afraid, I will trust. Not: when I have stopped being afraid, then I will trust. The two happen at the same time, in the same clause, and the fear is not required to leave first.

Which means the thing you have been waiting for, the moment when this stops frightening you, was never the entry requirement.

You have permission to do this while still frightened, and the fear leaving first has never once been the condition on anything. The Spirit of God is the one with somebody who has been waiting to feel different, and Psalm 56:3 puts the trusting inside the time of being afraid rather than after it.

The shame is the heavier half

Here is the practical half, and it is one correction. There are two things in that kitchen and only one of them is the knife.

The first is the fear itself, which is proportionate and which you could live with indefinitely. Plenty of people are wary of something and arrange around it and are perfectly happy.

The second is the shame, which is the belief that a grown man is not permitted to have this fear, and the shame is what turned a manageable wariness into a thing that cannot be spoken. The fear costs you a knife. The shame costs you the ability to ask anybody for help with it, and that is the far heavier bill.

And here is the tell. If a friend told you tomorrow that blades frighten him, you would not think less of him for one second. You would think of something helpful to say. The standard you hold yourself to is one you apply to exactly one person.

You were holding a standard nobody else is held to, and a fear you would forgive instantly in a friend has never once been shameful in you. Psalm 56:3 says afraid without lowering its voice, and the Holy Spirit is the one with a man who has never once said this out loud.

And here is the instruction, and the good news in it is that tonight is private. Nobody has to be told. This does not begin with a conversation, and you do not have to hand anybody the sentence in order to start.

The order most people assume is: admit it, then deal with it. It works just as well the other way round, and for a man who has carried this quietly for years, the other way round is considerably easier.

You have a private place to begin, and one evening alone in a kitchen has never once needed an audience to be real. The Spirit of God is the one in that kitchen with somebody who has told nobody, and Psalm 56:3 puts the trusting inside the fear without requiring anybody to be watching.

What tonight is, with that knife

So here is the assignment, and it is deliberately small. Pick up the knife tonight, cut one thing slowly, and put it away.

Tonight. One thing. One cut is enough. Put the board flat, put the thing on it, keep the other hand well back, and go slowly enough to keep your attention on your fingers the whole time. Do not chop, and do not try to do it properly, because there is no technique anywhere in this article and speed is not the objective.

It may be uncomfortable. That is expected, and discomfort is not danger, and you are allowed to feel every bit of it while your hands do the thing anyway.

You are going at your own speed rather than at the speed you have watched other people use, and a slow cut has never once been a worse cut. Psalm 56:3 puts the trusting and the fear in one breath, and the Holy Spirit is the one at that board with a man holding the big one for the first time.

Then the second half, which is the one that does the work. Put it away yourself. Wash it, dry it, and return it to the drawer, which means your hand goes to that handle a second time when nothing is being cut and there is no task in front of you. The second time is the part that moves something, because the first time can be explained away as necessity and the second time cannot.

You are reaching for it a second time with nothing at stake, and a knife put away by the hand that used it has never once been the same event as one left on a counter. The Spirit of God is the one at that drawer with somebody closing it, and Psalm 56:3 keeps the afraid and the trust in the same short line.