Perfect Love Casts Out Fear: Part 1

Changes of seasons lead me to places of introspection; of consideration of the season that is passing to understand what I bring with me into the one I will enter. I really do believe that some of the sweetest times I have with the Lord are as seasons close--no matter how sweet or how bitter--because inevitably when I look, I see His hand, His wisdom, His kindness, His love, His care for me; I see the ways He has honed and shaped and sifted and faithfully worked so meticulously to sanctify and grow me; I see what He has done. And all of this pondering inevitably leads me to sit down and write...the completion of understanding and the springboard to testifying.

So here I am. Sitting in front of a keyboard finally, prepared to put into words why this phrase sums up the last 4 years: “Perfect love casts out fear.”

The Lord brought me a mentor and she has been a great gift to me. One of the things that stands out to me in our conversations is that as she sees me from the outside, she points out things I can’t see...to her, it is vibrantly miraculous when and where I stand without fear.

I was raised in fear; it was pounded into me from the pulpit, it was used to manipulate and control me. I was an easy target, as I wore my emotions on my sleeve and my little heart desired to please. To find and to feed my fears wasn’t difficult, it resulted in me seeking to regain control: Before I knew Jesus, one of the few things I found was able to subdue my fears was to control my environment and do things on your own terms. Fear caused me to control and to distrust.

Then I met Jesus, and I found verses in scripture that told me things like, “Cast my fears upon the Lord for He cares for you,” and “I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears.” And my life changed. I gave up my need to control my fears and simply threw them at the cross.

And then I walked with Jesus for years, and I found verses in scripture that told me more things like, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me,” and “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?...Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war arise against me, yet I will be confident.” And my life changed again. I found that I didn’t need to pick of my fears to cast them, that instead they simply dispelled in the presence of the Lord.

And then I kept walking with Jesus for more years; I walked with Him through season after season; through the losses, the joys, the failures, the triumphs, the pains, the afflictions, the trials, the glories of my life. Day in and day out, He has been with me in my moments and He showed me verses in scripture that said things like, “The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent,” “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness,” and “I will protect him, because he knows My name.” And my life changed again. I found that there is peace that transcends life’s circumstances, peace that does not give way to the things that should cause me to fear because it stems from a source that is unchanging and unhindered and unswayed by the enormity of my need, the limitations I hold and weaknesses I carry. I have found myself in such a place of security in the hands of the Lord that fear doesn’t arise where it has a thousand times before even if there are a thousand very real reasons to. And though I have always said that I am fearful by nature, I find myself now trying to wrap my mind around the fact that the Lord can change a person’s nature.

I keep finding myself wondering, “Where is my fear?”
I am standing on unfamiliar ground, marveling at what has happened to my heart.
I do not know where my fear has gone, but I DO know that it is the perfect love of the Lord that has cast it out.

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1 John 4:10,16,18,19
"In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His son to be the propitiation for our sins...So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him...There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear...We love because He first loved us."