Hello friends... I want to start today's post by asking for your patience with me in this process. I have repeatedly felt clear that the Lord wants me to continue posting to this site... and yet, I am feeling almost completely unclear about what I am supposed to do beyond that! So, I'm experimenting with different formats, and trying to be prayerful and discerning in my process. Your prayers are invited and appreciated....
That said, I'm just going to share some thoughts today... reflections of my own, I suppose. The topic? The journey.
A scripture that really caught my attention in church this weekend was one that is very familiar to me, and probably to most in Western cultures... it's that one in 1 John about perfect love and it casting out all fear.
Without realizing it, I think I've always thought of this verse as if it were saying that, if the love in my life/heart/soul/spirit was perfect, then I would be without fear. As I've lived much of my life as a remarkably fearful and fear-driven person, I always struggled with this concept. Did it mean that God's love wasn't perfect? No, it wasn't that. In fact, the conclusion I think I usually came to was just that I must not have really embraced the perfect love offered to me by God... because, after all, if I had, I'd be free from all fear, right? Right?!?!
Well, as it turns out, I had a new thought about this verse today. Maybe it's not supposed to be such a passive process... maybe I don't sit around striving after perfect love and then, voila!, fear is gone. Maybe it's that I'm being reminded here that the perfect love that is always with me is the perfect weapon. So, when I find myself in the midst of fear, fighting against it, I can call upon that perfect love and believe that it can and will cast away all the fear. Maybe, instead of sitting by periodically checking my fear-levels as a measuring device for the amount of perfect love in my life, I am meant to take a more active approach. Maybe my action is to be believing in the power of His love, and then use that faith and this word to fight against one of the enemy's primary tools: fear.
What do you think? It's a battle of the mind; that's for sure. And I find myself fighting to let Him reclaim ground again and again... I find myself to be quite vulnerable to fear and its calling... although less so than I once was. (Praise God!) In any case, I find for myself today that I will be asking God to help fortify my belief in the power of that perfect love, and I will be calling upon that same power as I pray against the fear I feel. And then I will be believing (and praying for help with my unbelief.) Perfect love casts out fear. Period. Amen!
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