1 John 4:18-19
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because He first loved us.
Nervously I keep spinning my necklace round and round, trying to fight my emotions. There’s a silence of which I’m thankfull it isn’t awkward. This is the second time this verse has an impact on me, in ways I couldn’t think of a couple of months ago. Both times the amazing reverend that gives us Bible studies has brought it up. The first time I met him I’d grown bitter towards God, he must’ve noticed why; I was living in fear towards Him. I told him I didn’t really have any faith in God anymore, remember calling myself atheistic. He stood up and grabbed one of his many Bibles and looked up 1 John 4, he put it in front of me on the table. I read it and was speechless. This was new to me and brought up so many questions I still can’t answer after all the studies I’ve attended. There was a God that was love, Who had loved me all along, His love so pure and perfect there wouldn’t exist any fear in it’s presence. Yet, how could I apply this verse in my life?
During my puberty I’ve felt so much anxiety, day to day. It’s ironic to notice fear in your stomach, where the love butterflies ought to be. Sometimes, by a random comment from people around me, it would feel like a blow, both physical and to my mind. To function was very hard and all I set my mind to was trying to ignore the feeling, so it would eventually just disappear. It never did, but I had a stubborn hope, or certainty in denial, that one day it would. One day I’d wake up without that feeling, just went through my daily lifecycle and would fall asleep quickly in the evening. Especially in bed at night, when it’s impossible to escape from thoughts that haunt my head, I’d feel anxious. Sometimes I believe I’d hang on to those few seconds in the morning that you need to reorientate where you are, what you’re doing and whatever is on your mind. In the mornings I was blanc, peacefull and it had been a beautifull morning, just for a little while. I wonder what neurologists would say about those moments, the time we need to figure it out, before everything just hits you again and you pick life up where you left it the evening before.
Those days, I tried to focus on God and my beliefs. I’d pray the same prayers over and over again. But I stayed the frightened teen I was the day before, nothing changed, no matter how many times I cried it out to my God. That’s why the verse hit me. With God’s love in our lives, there would be no fear. So, where was the love? What had I’d done wrong? Out of frustration and out of other options I could use to escape, last summer, I’d rejected God. I have a shelf full of atheistic and scientific literature. From Dawkins to Bryson, read it all. It gave me what I wanted, criticism on a non-existing God on which deluded people manage to build a life. So there I sat with our reverend, a hyped-up new atheist. In that position I reckon the verse could’ve done more bad than good. The words love and fear in one sentence could’ve bittered me further. But, like many Biblical verses have done over the few months, it didn’t. It amazed me and made me curious to what kind of a Person could love in that way. One way or the other I could accept that I might’ve been wrong. Through many peoples lives and through extensive reading and studying, I’ve found out that the Judaic God wasn’t someone I was aquainted with in the last years. I’d just grown used to my own fixation on justice, in the shell of a religion.
My image of God was one of a superpower that would condemn me the instant I wouldn’t lead my life in the way that he would permit it. I’ve rejected that god, and I still do. My view of God was the view of Dawkins and Hitchins, the intellectual men. The books appealed to me, their perspective fitted with my experiences. But my God, the scary judgemental one, wasn’t the God of Abraham, wasn’t the God of David, wasn’t the God of common people, like me. The more I got to know who He really is, the less I could relate to what I was reading. The God that really became personal for me has a different theology, He is a Father. He loves me.
The ban on same sex marriages in many countries is often used to portray the inhuman character of higher powers. The discrimination and homophobia of (some of) their followers as an image of the indoctrination of intolerance. For that reason it’s so astonishing to notice the love of God so pure and honest among the people with homosexual desires. Since I’m able to accept that most likely I’m a part of that minority too, I can see the scripture become reality, for the first time in my life. In every aspect of the struggle or events that are related to that, I seem to be really, well, just lucky. First of all I attend this reformed Christian college, at first sight a bit of a cage, but secondly a amazing buffer for me. We have therapists we can visit and a support group, all people trustworthy. Then I happen to have a friend I could trust with my secret, who has immense Biblical knowledge and who is a witness to what God can do with ones life. All the people I’ve met so far have this devotion towards God I can’t begin to understand.
I’m inspired by the attitude of people who decided to remain alone, celibate. I mean, we’re Dutch, we can get married. When a Christian official refuses to seal a same sex marriage, the news is all over it and the man might lose his job! We speak of discrimination and here I see gays who confess they are anti gay-marriage. And all because of a love so great I can’t begin to understand how it must be to experience an emotion that can cause this devotion. The decision to live for Him in the first place and secondly for the heart felt desires a human might have. To deny themselves the privilege of a loving partner.
All those people have accepted the fact that their God will never judge them for who they are, although they don’t fit in the heteronormative culture of today’s society. They are witnesses of the core of faith, what it really is all about. The things no atheistic scholar has yet managed to disprove. Jesus walked among whores and tax collectors. To the people that where among Him in His days, that was a testimony of His love. Today, to me, the homosexuals let me witness His ongoing love. He didn’t do what I’d done all those years, towards myself and to others, He didn’t judge.
The second time I’m confronted with 1 John 4 is during a conversation I have with the reverend about the confession of faith the members of our Bible study do. I can’t yet do that, there’s too much doubt in me. ‘The rejection issue does run deep, doesn’t it?’ he implies. I wanted to shout out why, but I can’t and in the end it doesn’t really matter. This is about me, about acceptance on many levels that I can’t practice. I ended our conversation by saying that I do sincerely hope that He exists, is out there. That it indeed is He who takes care of me while I go through this difficult period.
More and more I get to know Him, more and more I get to know myself. The more I do, the faster I wanted to run away from Him. And actually I still do. Saying I hope He’s there sometimes feels like half a lie, but deep inside me I do have that hope. It would implicate a lot, it would have consequences for my further lifestyle. But if there’s really someone who carries you when you can’t struggle your way through anymore; Who’s perfect love will banish all fear, a love that is present today, loving me before I can love Him; Of that kind of Person I sincerely hope that He is out there.
Hi again, AC – and thanks for your thoughts. The verse you are contemplating today was possibly the most important passage for my journey to becoming a Christian… rivaled only by Jesus’ promise that those who believe in him will be called children of God, and the promise in Isaiah to the eunuchs and foreigners that God’s house will be a house of prayer to all the nations.
I was not raised in a Christian home, and my first real experience with what Christians believed came when I was trying to understand what it meant that I might be gay. Suffice it to say, I learned a lot about Christians, and very little about Christ – but what I thought that taught me about God made me very afraid. Like you, I believed in God the Tyrant, and I clung to rationality, to atheism, as a shelter, even though my heart had always told me there was more to heaven and earth than mere matter and brute force.
It was only when chance dropped me in the midst of a community of Christians who really were marked by love, and changed by their interactions with the God of the gospels, that I finally met the true God you describe – the loving Father, the Creator of all. And that was when I was challenged with the idea that perfect love casts out all fear, and like you, I wondered, if there really was a loving God out there, why I was still afraid. Here’s where I’ve come out on that question today.
We humans fear when we lack security, when we sense our vulnerability and that there is a power out there that can hurt us… and the reality of our position before the Divine is that we are very weak, very exposed… utterly powerless. If God wanted to, He can destroy us – and gay people have spent their lives being told exactly that, that God has given us up as abominations, that we will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Interactions with Christians tend to hurt, as they carelessly, thoughtlessly, wield words like cudgels that leave us bruised in those places of our hearts that are most tender.
In many ways, fear before power is the most reasonable response. But still we are told that perfect love should make us fearless – and I think that is true – that the act of believing in a perfect love will destroy fear. I think it’s one of those places where faith transcends reason, yet is not exactly irrational. Yes, we are vulnerable before God – we are still naked before Him, no matter what fig leaves we try to throw up against Him – but God has given us reason to believe that no matter what we do, or who we are, He still loves. Christ forgiving His killers on the cross, the act of the cross itself – if Jesus is the tangible manifestation of God’s nature, then we have nothing to fear in being vulnerable before Him. Awe, yes, reverence, absolutely – look to the first chapters of Revelation to see an image of God that is truly terrifying in its power… but He is trustworthy, so there is no threat. Thus love casts out fear of God.
But what about fear of His followers, those who so thoughtlessly, sometimes cruelly, hurt us? I’ve just come to a place where even that cruelty testifies to the love of the Divine, by contrast. Christians are people, sinful and flawed, and human love is never perfect – just look to our families, where there is always some sort of strife or brokenness. There will never be a day, this side of Heaven, when people don’t hurt us – but even those injuries are not something we should fear. Of what significance is it that a church, a Pope, a pastor should be against us, if God is for us? Seriously, who cares? And so fear fades, and human injustice is only a reminder of the goodness of True, divine love. (Which isn’t to say that those who can shouldn’t confront such cruelty and injustice on behalf of those who are still susceptible to injury from it… we should, at the very least to ensure that we are doing justice to the gospel we have been entrusted with, and are presenting a truthful image of the God we claim to love… but just to say that a day will come when your faith and trust in God’s love outweighs all that any person or Church could say to tell you otherwise). The passage is true, and God is with you. Believe it, my friend.
Okay, sorry for the essay in your comment box – I guess I was just inspired by your entry. Btw, I got your e-mail, I just accidentally deleted it when I tried to reply. *grins* Yeah, I’m a dork like that. Feel free to write again if you ever want to talk.