“The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom should I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life—of whom should I be afraid” (Psalm 27:1); The Lord’s “perfect love drives out fear” (1 John 4:18)
Lord Jesus, it’s freeing to tell you what you already know. We have fears, worries, and anxieties. As fearful as we know ourselves to be, you know we’re actually terrified at times. But also, as much as we believe you love us, you declare we’re loved 10,000 times more—just as much as the Father loves you. Our fears and your love need to meet more often.
We fear things we can’t control. Like surgery on loved ones, and things that threaten our kids and grandkids. Every time we forget a name or where we put our keys, we wonder if it’s early-onset dementia. We overthink what people think of us. Germs, war, being forgotten, wrinkles, conspiracies, losing our golf game—all fear-fuel, at times.
SO, how does your perfect love “drive out fear”? Certainly not by eliminating the emotion of fear from our bandwidth of emotions. You don’t do that with our anger; instead telling us, “in your anger, do not sin” (Eph. 4:6).
But of course… the clearer we see you, Jesus, the more we see of you, the more we gaze upon you, the less our fears grow, growl, and grab our hearts.
On a 1-to-10 scale, Jesus, make your awesomeness, love, and sovereignty so real to us, our size 9.9 fears shrink to a 6.7 then to a 2.1. Wither and shrivel our fears by your everything. So Very Amen.
