When they're out to get you!

Here are five of the most dreaded phrases in the English language:

• “Ross, I think I’ve found a short cut!”*

• Closed for staff training

• Junction 20 – two-hour delay

• Rail replacement service

• Four-way control: Wait here until green light shows

(*Credit to my walking companion, Alan.)

Yesterday I was in good time for the midweek service at Ormskirk Parish Church… until I reached the roadworks outside St Anne’s RC Church. And there it was: the sign I fear most.Four-way control, accompanied by the dreaded red light.

For the uninitiated, that means four lines of traffic, each waiting its turn to crawl forward. It can be quite a wait.

Yesterday, it was interminable. We're talking four minutes—maybe more! At least six cars behind me gave up and turned around. I began to wonder: had the system frozen? Or had the contractors simply switched all four lights to red to allow free movement on site?

Whatever the case, I didn’t cope well.The four-way control wasn’t in control… and frankly, neither was I.

One bitten, twice shy. On the way home I took a different route—Moss Delph Lane.Guess what I found at the junction with Swanpool Lane?Temporary traffic lights. Four-way control.

So I took the only route left: Town Green Lane, over the bridge by the station.And there it was.Three-way control. Wait here until green light shows.

Over the years, driving to Southport Crematorium (and I really can’t be late), I’ve often suspected there’s a secret team at Lancashire County Council dedicated to preventing me reaching my destination—carefully coordinating road closures in my path.

Now, I’m convinced they not only exist, but they’re out to get me.

Just like Yossarian in Catch-22 says: “Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.”

Each morning I read a Psalm. And because I move steadily through all 150, I often come across those psalms “off the beaten track”—the ones rarely quoted on posters or in worship songs.

And it strikes me just how many include this same sense of menace, of being got at by unseen forces or unnamed enemies.

Just three examples from the first ten Psalms:

“Lord, how many are my foes!How many rise up against me!” (Psalm 3:1)

“Lord my God, I take refuge in you;save and deliver me from all who pursue me,or they will tear me apart like a lion...” (Psalm 7:1–2)

“Lord, see how my enemies persecute me!” (Psalm 9:13)

It’s a major theme. Even betrayal by friends“Even my close friend, someone I trusted,one who shared my bread, has turned against me.” (Psalm 41:9)

So why all this menace?

Because so many psalms were written out of real crisis—war, persecution, betrayal, or exile. David, who wrote many of them, lived through it all: political plots, family disintegration, military threats. These dangers weren’t imagined; they were literal.

But more than that, the Psalms are brutally honest prayers. They don’t tidy up the edges. Menace appears because fear, injustice, and anxiety are part of the human experience.

This is what gives the Psalms their emotional power. They give voice to feelings we often suppress in polite prayer.

And most strikingly, the Psalms don’t just name the menace. They locate trust in God right in the midst of it.

“You prepare a table before mein the presence of my enemies.” (Psalm 23:5)

The threat isn’t ignored.It becomes the context for choosing faith.

So yes—maybe there’s no secret LCC bunker plotting to block every road in Aughton. Maybe the sense that they’re out to get me is just a misreading of the facts. It’s just that we have terrible roads here. 

But even if it were true…

The Psalms teach me that I can bring my fears—even my paranoia—to God.Not to act on them, but to pray them.Not to suppress them, but to trust through them.

And that, I think, is a road worth taking.

Cheers,

Ross