Fear acts like my best friend.

It convinces me.

It persuades me.

It tells me to build, and so I do.

It says safety is my ultimate goal, and so I build frantically with hurried hands these walls that seclude me and enclose me in a thick glass case where I am seen but not known; admired but not touched; pointed at but not held.

Fear tells me risk is stupid. It tells me vulnerability is foolishness. It tells me that jumping is death. It keeps me from doing so much; saying and feeling so much.

It keeps me shiny and clean in a glass box; unable to be broken, hurt, damaged, or held.

It keeps me in control of me.

I used to be more free, you know. Before fear and I became friends. I would live with my heart exposed, I would love with loyalty and depth, I would feel with this recklessness that somehow brought life and adventure. But then I got hurt. I began to learn that people didn’t see the same beauty and wonder in the softness of my heart that I did. They didn’t value loyalty like I did. And overtime, rejection and betrayal left hard black spots on my heart.

And that’s when I met Fear. That’s when he began to teach me how to protect and keep safe my heart and my feelings.

And that’s when I began to die.

Because here’s what Fear didn’t tell me. He didn’t tell me that Love was the only source of life. He didn’t tell me that enclosing my heart meant shutting out Love, and when you shut out Love you stop living.

The enemy wants us to live a dead life. He wants us to fear rejection and betrayal. He wants us to avoid pain at all costs. And isn’t that what we want, too? Don’t we want to stay away from pain?

But the truth is that Love is a risk. Choosing real, raw love means choosing exposure to pain. And when we fear pain, we reject love.

1 John 4:7-8 says,

“Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”

When we reject love, we reject God. We cannot know God if we do not live choosing to love. What’s more, Love is the only way to experience full, real Life.

Embracing Love means embracing Jesus. It also means embracing pain. Jesus doesn’t promise a life free of pain with Him. He tells us to anticipate and expect the pain. But we can’t fear it. Fear cannot be our teacher when it comes to protecting our hearts. God believes so much in the joy and abundance that comes in living a life of love that He sent His only Son to die so we could have the opportunity to live it. There is something in pain that makes us fully alive. There is something in choosing to love people REGARDLESS of what might happen to us that brings immeasurable joy and life to us. There is something about sharing in Jesus’ suffering that brings intimacy like you’d never know if you didn’t experience it. We must reject the fear that entangles us in nets of apathy and numbness and pursue Love.

If I speak in the tongues^[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poorand give over my body to hardship that I may boast,^[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.  1 Corinthians 13:1-3

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