Love Consumes My Fear©

     The conversation opened up with my daughter as we drove down the road.  She’s grown now, with a family of her own. As we talked she mentioned to me that one of the hardest things was when I didn’t trust her to drive the car.   I was pretty freaked out about the thought all of my babies behind the wheel of the car. But the truth is, I’ve lived with so much fear about so many things.

     I can still go there, don’t get me wrong. But as I’ve begun to understand the acceptance and love of God, it’s not as crippling as it once was.  

     One of those things that I was told for so many years is that fear is the opposite of faith.  I was ashamed for my fear, as I felt that somehow I was letting God down, that is, until I began to consider my children.

     There were times when one would wake up in the night from a nightmare or maybe the sound of a thunderstorm.  One child was afraid to leave us for a season of their lives. My reaction was not to be disappointed in them for being afraid, but instead to wrap my arms around them and tell them everything will be OK.  As I held them tight, love won over their fears and they settled into a deep sleep.

     It’s how I see God now, when fear knocks on my door.  He’s not the least bit bothered by it. In fact it’s His opportunity to surround me and remind me that everything’s going to be OK. He covers me with His great love and care and I find an ability to let go and rest. His love is consuming my fear.

     It wasn’t always this way as so much of my life I didn’t see God through a very loving lens.

     I couldn’t find a way to marry the God of wrath that had been shown to me through the Old Testament with the God of the New.  I’m stunned as I begin to see things through a different lens, now.  

    The Old Testament begins with the story of perfect love.  It ends with 400 years of silence. In between are stories of life with man as his own god.  It’s pretty intense to read, sometimes. The wars, the deaths, the betrayals, the sheer forgetfulness of love and then there was silence.

    The New Testament opens with the genealogy of Christ.  Perfect love was beginning to take back over this broken world and would change the lives of all mankind, forever.  To any and all who would receive, it waited to be given.

    How did it all get so distorted in this life of mine, I wonder.   Oh I heard of the reality of God’s love for me but the litany of things to do took me right back into the Old Testament life..  As I spoke with my daughter I told her what that did for me. It created a boatload of fear.

     I remember being told how important my quiet time was and that if I really loved God I would do it first thing in the morning.  On my way to work one day I had a flat tire. As I told someone their first response was “Did you have your quiet time this morning?”  No, I had not. “That’s probably why you had a flat tire.”

    I felt responsible for the bad things that happened.  I didn’t know how to just equate it with a broken world.

    There were many voices in my head from years of exposure to religion.  One by one I’ve had to consider them as they come into my mind. Is this the God I see in Christ?  Jesus told us, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.”

    I had to get past some things to begin to comprehend.

    I had been told that if I had any unconfessed sin in my life that God could not hear me. Talk about fear, what if I missed one?  The scripture that supported this teaching was from the moment on the cross when Jesus said, “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  I was told that God could not look on sin so he turned his back on Jesus. I believed it. I was wrong.

    All throughout the scriptures it says “I will never leave you or forsake you.”  So what was Jesus saying I began to consider? I believe Jesus felt His humanity.  I believe that he felt the burden of sin on Him. He felt the separation of what sin does.  He felt what all of us feel when the weight of what this broken world weighs us down. Why do I think this?  Because to think otherwise goes completely against God’s nature.   

    What I was told about this life with God often seemed to be conflicting.  I’ve spent many moments considering things that I’ve been taught that don’t reconcile to love.  I’ve learned most from considering my own mind and heart in regards to my children. How would I be?  What would I do? But more importantly how was Christ?

    When He met the woman at the well He boldly approached her.  She hadn’t confessed one sin to him. He stepped into the arena with her and offered love.

    When the New Testament started it started with a litany of broken people who had no real clue they would be in the lineage of the greatest man who ever lived.  His seed was in them. They bore life to what was already there. It’s the life we are all invited into now.

    “The old with its regulations and requirements is gone, Paul said in Corinthians.  It revealed what life lived on our own huspa looks like. It didn’t work.  

     There’s a new life now.  It’s the life of perfect love offered to me, every single day.  Perfect love truly does drive out fear. I live to tell.

©copyrighted 2019 Julie H Todd