There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. 1 John 4:18-19
Gracious Father, the season of Lent is, once again, confronting me with my penchant for living more of a driven life, than a called life. The last few weeks have been a blur—filled with too much navel gazing and second-guessing, and performance-ism and perfectionism.
By your grace, I want to live with less fear and more freedom, less by frenzy and more by faith, with fewer obsessions and with much more adoration of you, the God of all grace and peace.
As I get older I just don’t have as much energy to juggle as many balls or spin as many plates as I used to. This is simultaneously a humbling thing and a good thing. For if greater grace comes to the humble, then accepting my limitations is essential for my liberation. Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!
It’s not difficult to see that my driven-ness and busyness are rooted in fear—the fear of not being enough and having enough, the fear of losing face and losing control, the fear of missing the mark and missing out.
Come, Lord Jesus, come. Perfection can only be found in you. Your perfect love alone can liberate this poser, performer, and perfectionist. Drive out my fears by a greater grasp of your grace and knowledge of your love. You lived a life of perfect obedience for us, as the second Adam—fulfilling everything God requires of us.
You died a death of perfect love for us, as the Lamb of God, exhausting God’s judgment against our sin. Your resurrection from the dead on the third day is the firstfruits and guarantee that one Day, we too, will be made perfect in love—the Day for which I long more than any other.
Lord Jesus, I love you because you first loved me and continue to love me. May your perfect love continue to drive every lingering and limiting fear from my life. So very Amen I pray, in your merciful and mighty name.
