Just in Case

“Just in case.”

Inside Out (2015)

 

How cute is this fanart of Riley’s five emotions? Thanks to the artistic skills of Mondudu at newgrounds.com.

It was probably no more than a second of the film’s runtime: just three little words spoken by a minor character, with no implications at all for the wider plot; a throwaway one-liner intended to raise a giggle or at least a knowing smirk.

I didn’t smile.

If you remember, the premise of Inside Out is that everybody has five little people hanging out in her brain, representatives of the emotions Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger, and Disgust, who between them are in charge of how their human responds to what life throws at her. By far the lion’s share of the story takes place in the mind of protagonist Riley, but we’re given occasional glimpses into other characters’ heads as well, notably Riley’s parents’. Early on in the film, the family is eating dinner together after Riley’s first day at her new school in a new city;¹ her mother realises she’s not her usual buoyant self, and attempts to enlist her husband’s help in trying to figure out why, only to witness her husband turn the whole thing into an absolute car crash by getting cross and sending Riley to her room. “For this, we gave up that Brazilian helicopter pilot?” laments Anger exasperatedly in Riley’s mum’s brain. After Riley stomps upstairs to her room, we get a better look at said Brazilian helicopter pilot, as Riley’s mum’s emotions call up a memory of him to play on the screen of her consciousness. “Come, fly with me, gatinha,” he implores, open-shirted and haloed by sunlight. The emotions, in unison, sigh and smile.

The plot point of this slight marital disharmony is resolved, as plot points tend to be, at the end of the film, when Riley’s parents attend an ice hockey match in which she is competing.² Riley’s dad had the idea that they should make themselves up in Riley’s team colours, and her mum was a fan of the suggestion. “Best idea he’s had in a while,” approves Anger in her brain. “He’s a really good guy,” agrees Sadness. Once again, in unison, the emotions sigh and smile. Anger picks up the Brazilian-helicopter-pilot memory and throws it over her shoulder. It’s an adorable moment.

And then up sneaks Fear behind her and retrieves the memory from where it landed. “Just in case,” she alleges before taking it back with her. And that’s the end of that; that’s where we move on. The camera reenters the real world and follows Riley bumping into someone at the side of the rink.

Maybe it seems I take this jazz too seriously – and maybe I have little right to comment given that I’ve never had so much as one romantic interest in my life, let alone a choice of two – but that little ‘just in case’ kind of ruined the whole thing for me. The resolution of the plot point is supposed to be that Riley’s mum’s romantic affections are fully restored to where they belong, to her husband. The tossing away of the helicopter-pilot memory was part of that; it symbolised the completeness of her renewed loyalty to him. And then Fear undermined all that by going and picking it up again.

I mean, of course it was Fear, right? ‘Just in case’ is Fear verbalised. ‘Just in case’ denotes doubt, tentativity, the hedging of bets; its mother is ‘what if?’, and unshakeable confidence its bitterest enemy. When Fear picked up that memory, what that meant was that, although Riley’s mum was happy to let her husband have the fullness of her romantic affections for the moment, since he was being a really good guy, she was afraid lest he not continue to be a really good guy, and so wasn’t prepared to offer him truly undivided loyalty. She didn’t want to put all her eggs in one basket; she wanted to keep the odd other romantic interest in her back pocket, for a rainy day. Just in case. Just in case her husband let her down again and she needed something else to fall back on.

And all right, we’re dealing entirely in the mind here; one doesn’t at all get the impression that Riley’s mum was ever going to do anything about reconnecting with that Brazilian helicopter pilot in the real world. But the mind, the heart, the seat of thought and personality and will, is where everything begins, and Jesus has made it clear that God deals with the sinful urges of the mind as if they had been followed through into real-world actions.³ When it comes to our loyalty to God, moreover, we know that nothing less than the fullness of the affections – heart, mind, soul, strength – cuts the mustard.⁴

Perhaps, then, that was why Fear’s ‘just in case’ ruined the resolution for me so badly – because I was already in mind of the relationship between God and his people of which marriage is an earthly picture, and in that relationship, ‘just in case’ amounts to idolatry. You shall have no other gods besides me, our God demands, and rightfully, given that there are no other gods besides him, on his level.⁵ And we look on him in his goodness and sigh and smile – and meanwhile, tuck our discarded idols into our back pocket with our other hand. Just in case he lets us down one day and we need something else to fall back on. Have a peer at the start of 1 Samuel 7:

And the men of Qiryat Y’arim came and took up the ark of the LORD and brought it to the house of Avinadav on the hill. And El’azar his son they consecrated as keeper of the ark of the LORD. And it happened from the day of the ark’s installation at Qiryat Y’arim that the days were many, and there were twenty years, and all the house of Israel lamented after the LORD. And Samuel said to all the house of Israel: If with all your heart you are returning to the LORD, put aside the gods of foreignness from your midst, and the Ashtarot, and direct your heart to the LORD and serve only him, and he will deliver you from the hand of the Philistines.⁶

You see that the people of Israel weren’t not worshipping the LORD for those twenty years. They’d got the ark back, they’d given it a home, they’d consecrated somebody to look after it, and when things were bad (which they kind of really were, being under the jackboot of the Philistines and all), they knew that it was because something was amiss in their relationship with God; it was after him that they lamented all that time. But, as is obvious from what Samuel then says, they had other gods in their back pocket too. They hadn’t abandoned the LORD; they just weren’t following him with their whole heart. And they did that for years, years, without twigging that they were displeasing God by clinging on to his rivals as well as him.

For me, today, it’s not Ashtarot: it’s money in the bank; it’s success in my academic endeavours; it’s an ideal of a lifestyle where I have everything sorted and neat and perfect; it’s material stuff and what I think that material stuff means; it’s the good opinions of other people, or the illusion of their good opinions; it’s being That Kind of Woman.⁷ I gaze on the Lord and smile over how good he is, but I’d rather not put all my eggs in one basket. This way, if he ever lets me down, I’ve got something to fall back on. I’ve got somewhere else I can put my affections. I’ve got things to aspire to and build my sense of self around that are detached from the pursuit of his kingdom – just in case. I may think I’ve repented and tossed my idols over my shoulder, but every time, my fear goes and retrieves them again.

You’ve probably heard the statistics about how many times the Bible exhorts us its readers not to fear, but the very first instance of that is when God cuts his covenant with Abram:⁸ After these things, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying: Do not fear, Abram, I am a shield to you, your very great reward. And it’s like, ‘do not fear’? Where did that come from? The last we heard of Abram – the ‘these things’ that we’re now ‘after’ – was that he successfully rescued his kidnapped nephew, and then refused to take any of the spoil from his defeated enemies – hardly the actions you’d associate with a fearful person. So what was it Abram was afraid of? The next verse tells us: And Abram said: Lord GOD, what will you give me? And I go about childless, and the heir of my house is Damascus Eliezer. And just in case we weren’t sure, the next verse continues: And Abram said: Look, to me you have given no offspring, and look, a son of my household will inherit from me.

What was Abram afraid of? That God wouldn’t do what he’d said he was going to do. That God wouldn’t give him the legacy, the inheritance, that he’d promised him. That all that stuff about becoming a great nation through whom all the families of the earth would be blessed just wasn’t going to come true.⁹ That God was going to let him down.

And look, the word of the LORD (came) to him, saying: This man shall not inherit from you; rather, one who comes out of your body shall inherit from you. And he took him outside, and he said: Look towards heaven, and count the stars, if you can count them. And he said to him: Thus shall be your offspring. And he believed in the LORD, and he reckoned (it) to him (as) righteousness.

If you believe that what God has told you will happen, will happen, then you don’t need to entertain ‘what if?’s or make plans ‘just in case’. There is no ‘just in case’ scenario where God lets you down, not if you believe he is who he says he is. This is where Riley’s mum potentially has more of an excuse for her just-in-case-ery, because her husband might indeed let her down at some point, though I hasten to add that I’m not advocating infidelity in disappointing marriages. The point is, if she shouldn’t be keeping rivals for her affections in her back pocket, how much more should that be true of us, given that our God will never let us down, never dishonour himself by doing less for us than he said he would.

The reason I keep rivals for my affections in my back pocket even as I contemplate God’s goodness, then, is because I lack faith. There’s no place for the fear that insists ‘just in case’ if I have confidence in my almighty Father to fulfil everything he has spoken for me. Which being so, small wonder that faith is reckoned as righteousness, because it’s faith that keeps the affections with God where they belong – heart and mind and soul and strength, all eggs in one basket, as he commands – instead of hedging their bets on idols that offer something else to fall back on. To fall back on? Do I not know that my Father has held me since before the present world existed? Do I suppose that he would change his mind and let me fall now? Not to mention that everything I could aspire to in this world shall only last as long as it, if that, whereas the inheritance held for me in heaven is imperishable.

But of course, the thing about faith is that it’s a gift. I don’t generate it from within myself; it is granted me by the one in whom it is placed.¹⁰ If fear has led me to keep idols in my back pocket ‘just in case’, the way to repent of that is not simply to attempt to beat down my affection for those idols, but to tackle its source – to pray that he who gave me my faith would increase it until I see no need to make provision for ‘just in case’ scenarios, because I am so confident in him and what he has said.

Perhaps this all sounds a bit obvious, if you’ve known God and his scriptures for a while. But back in 1 Samuel 7, the Israelites went twenty years worshipping God while keeping idols in their back pockets, so it can’t have been obvious to them. And the dividedness of my affections testifies that it’s not terribly obvious to me, either. Still, the very reason why my ‘just in case’ precautions are so unjustified is the same reason why I know God won’t ever leave me in need of something other than him to fall back on: however faithless I am, he remains faithful.¹¹ And faith in that faithfulness is what dispels the fear that murmurs ‘just in case’.

Footnotes

¹ Here’s the whole scene if you’d like to remind yourself of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cjgdiy_SGjA.

² Again, whole scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fkwf4yUuRM. How awfully kind of the humans of YouTube to have uploaded both of the sections relevant to my post today.

³ You know, that middle chunk of Matthew 5: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matt+5&version=ESVUK.

⁴ Take Deuteronomy 6:5 in the context of Deuteronomy 6:4, of course, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=deut+6&version=ESVUK. And you remember that Jesus reaffirmed this as the most important commandment.

⁵ Exodus 20:3, and, ooh, try Isaiah 45:5 – which is super fun because it’s an address to a pagan king who definitely wouldn’t have thought that the LORD was on a unique level of God-ness.

⁶ Whole chapter: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+sam+7&version=ESVUK.

⁷ Sometimes I write a blog post that quite substantially shapes how I phrase and frame the issues I talked about in it for some time. ‘That Kind of Woman’, under January 2016 in my blog archive. Can you believe I’ve been writing this jazz since the year Inside Out came out?

⁸ Genesis 15 is an awesome chapter and if I weren’t trying to stick the point, I could go off on all sorts of exciting tangents about it: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=gen+15&version=ESVUK.

⁹ That was back in Genesis 12, as the Hebrew class I’ve been teaching this year know all too well: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=gen+12&version=ESVUK.

¹⁰ Ephesians 2:8, anyone?

¹¹ And that’s 2 Timothy 2:13.