There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life–fear of death, fear of judgment–is one not yet fully formed in love. We, though, are going to love–love and be loved. First we were loved, now we love. He loved us first. 1 John 4:18-19, The Message
When I was young, I was afraid of God. I wasn’t afraid the day I walked home from school and I saw police chasing a man down the street just past me right where I lived; I just made my way home and did my homework. I wasn’t afraid when just a few houses down, a neighbor was threatened on her way home after getting a quart of milk for her family; I just watched from the top of the stairs as my mom (with our German Shepard in hand) left to walk our neighbor home so she could get back to her 3 girls. I wasn’t even afraid when I saw a fire in a small building across the street from my bedroom window that wound up bringing out the red flashing lights of the fire department, I just went to sleep. But I was afraid of God; and that fear didn’t go away for a very long time.
Some might say that it’s not such a bad thing to fear God; to that I would refer to 1 John 4:18, “there is no room in love for fear.” As a kid, I didn’t really think much about God’s love. I only remember fearing God and his judgment–God’s punishment-—punishment that was sure to happen any minute for any number of things. I didn’t really have an understanding of a God that loved me; it just didn’t enter my mind.
I know I was just a kid back then. But thinking about these verses, I couldn’t help but ask my own kids about their perception of God…what did they think about God? So I asked them and then I breathed a sigh of relief when they replied that God is love, and God loves them. I was relieved because they didn’t even have to think about it. I just wanted them to know the love of God…without hesitation, without reservation…and they did. I wanted them to know that where love is, fear isn’t. I’m not saying at all that I wasn’t loved as a kid—-I was—-I have awesome, loving parents I just didn’t think of a loving God back then.
What I am saying is that by not talking to anyone about my perception of God, I allowed a childlike fear of God to last for too many years. I didn’t get the idea that God loved me…first. At some point along this journey I stood at a fork in the road where I left the very narrow path with a very limited view of God and instead embarked on an adventure to discover more about the God that I really didn’t know–the God that is love. And what I continue to discover is that God’s love has no room for fear. In fact, it’s God’s love, The Source of all love, that gives me the capacity to love.
