Perfect Your love, O God

I am someone who sometimes struggles with fear. It is, essentially, the same conundrum Adam and Eve faced when the serpent spoke to them in the Garden of Eden: Fear tells me I must grasp at the things I hope for because I am not loved enough for them to be given to me. It takes me down, shaming me for my inability to do all things for myself, when that is not what I'm called to, anyway. I am called to be a truster and a believer, simply residing with God in the garden, a child whose ability to be even these seemingly simple things is only enabled by first receiving the good, good love of a God who loves me first. And the grace to do even that is pure gift.

I always love 1 John 4:18, which points out that fear and love are opposites: "There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment, and so one who fears is not yet perfect in love." Fear takes; love gives and transforms. Perfect your love in me, O God.

I think fear is something we are struggling with in our nation right now. In her Sat., Jan. 23, installment of "The Pause" email called "For there are callings in a time as in a life," Krista Tippett speaks to this, writing about callings and the important vocation of being someone who speaks love to fear.

She writes, "And some of us are called to be calmers of fear. This calling is so tender, and so urgent, if what we truly want is to coax our own best selves, and the best selves of others, into the light. Fear is the primitive, powerful place our brains go when they perceive threat. It collapses imagination, closing down a sense of the possible. It looks for an 'other' to blame, and it finds one. The anger that has consumed our life together on every side is fueled by pain and fear."

These are powerful truths she speaks, and I think they apply at both the individual and communal levels. It is a great call to be someone who calms fear; let us see each other and ourselves as children who need to be shown we can proceed in courage because we are safe in the arms of a God who is love, and let us remind each other of this love.

The psalmist in Psalm 40:2-4 displays a confidence in this compassion, mercy and faithfulness of God, reminding God that God is a loyal God. The psalmist writes: "Surely, I wait for the LORD; who bends down to me and hears my cry, draws me up from the pit of destruction, out of the muddy clay, sets my feet upon rock, steadies my steps, and puts a new song in my mouth, a hymn to our God. Many shall look on in fear, and they shall trust in the LORD."

May we cry out to the Lord when we feel afraid, and trust our God hears us and is setting our feet on solid ground so we can sing a new song of praise in love. And that through this, others' fears, too, will be calmed.