Perfect Love Drives Out Fear

The threat of COVID-19 hasn't settled. In fact, it is still rising. Amidst this chaos and uncertainties, who among the living doesn't get scared?

A week ago, fear overwhelmed me. I was scared for myself. I was scared for my family. I was scared for the world. I was scared for the future. Despite prayers being lifted up, fear rested in my heart. I felt like I was a standing log, deeply and tightly compacted with concrete all around. I couldn't move. Fear numbed me. I didn't know where to go. I felt like I was inside a cell and couldn't break free. I did not understand why I felt fear in my heart. I thought I am a Jesus believer. But why do I feel the thing I should not?

As I was battling the darkness in my mind, I heard a voice inside telling me:

"It's alright to feel fear. It's normal. You are human."

"But you keep fear to yourself. You try to fight it your own way."

"Tell me about it. Talk to me. I want to hear. I am listening."

No wonder I felt stiff. No wonder I felt like running in circles that never ends.

I kept fear to myself and fed it with my own hands. I kept it in tight, close fists like a little girl who caught fireflies and doesn't want to let it go. I didn't give it to the One who calmed my many storms—the One who is the answer to my freedom. 

As I slowly disclosed to Him my anxieties and willingly opened my heart to offer to Him what I had been holding on, a revelation was exposed right in my very own heart. The layers of fear faded slowly, like leaves in the fall, each one falling into the ground—and the wind swept them away to nowhere. 

"Perfect love drives out fear." I've seen and heard this verse used so many times but never really fully grasped the totally of its meaning until this experience. It is not my perfect love for Jesus that drives out fear. It is not my believing in Jesus that kicks away anxiety. Rather, it is the perfect love of Jesus "to me" that drives out fear. I just have to voluntarily open myself up so He could pour into me.

After feeding on the truth of how loved, how protected, how provided I am in the midst of this dark time, only then my eyes saw the true meaning of perfect love. His perfect love. When you know in the deepest part of your being that He loves you so much, especially in moments when you feel like everything is crushed and gone, it's when you experience what it is like to be perfectly loved.

Fear will always be there waiting in the corner for you and me. It prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to persecute. There will be days when it gets to me. But now I know what to do the next time it roars at me. I will tell my Lord Jesus about it as He soaks me in His perfect love.