Fear or Love?

To quote the usually hilarious Jim Carrey, “So many of us choose our path out of fear disguised as practicality.”  This quote stuck out at me from my Facebook feed some what like the world’s largest zit appearing on picture day.  There was more to his quote, which was taken from a commencement speech he gave at a college graduation.  But this line struck my heart because it really defined my life.

I chose my path out of fear disguised as practicality, and it all started in high school.  Now don’t get me wrong – when it comes to most other things, I don’t have a lot of fear.  My teenage self in particular would do anything, and talk to anyone.  You dare me to do what?  No problem.  You want to talk to that boy, but you’re too shy?  No problem, I’ll go start talking to him and then you join me.  You want me to sing two solos and have the lead part in the Christmas program in grade 6?  Not a problem.

But for some reason I could not apply that same fearlessness into pursuing my true passion.  Initially I wanted to become a veterinarian, but very early on in my high school career I realized that I would not be able to do that without a lot of hard work!  I feared hard work for a few reasons.  It didn’t come naturally to me, because most school work felt easy to me.  I also feared hard work because it would take up my time, and my precious time was much better spent socializing in my opinion!  But deep down in my heart, I feared failing – so instead I decided I’d pursue my second choice of being a graphic designer.  This also appeared very practical – because I had a father who was a graphic designer, and had some natural talent for it, so really it was a no-brainer choice.  Choosing this much safer profession I could get away with the easy course load – and take all the math ‘G’ courses and the easy sciences.  I still managed to nearly bomb Biology, which to me only solidified my practical choice of being a graphic designer over a vet.  I mean there’s a pretty good chance you can’t be a good veterinarian if you don’t understand biology!

So it was now time to go into post secondary education – and I wanted desperately to go to YWAM, and travel to some amazing places in the world.  If you’re not familiar with YWAM, I can tell you more about it later.  However, at the time I was dating a boy from Regina, and the fear of losing him if I went too far away swayed my decision – so I chose a Bible College to go to that was just an hour away from him.  We broke up the month before I moved there – which made it too late to change where I was going, and I wasted away a year of my life at college because I didn’t want to be there.

I’m just going to interject here for a minute to say that this all sounds so depressing – and I’m only talking about the negatives of all these years of my life for the purpose of my point!  So hang in there with me – I’ll be bringing this back around yet!

At some point during my year at Bible College, I fell in love with counselling and psychology.  I felt my heart pulling me to stay at that college and take a counselling or psych degree.  It would have been a lot of work – I had almost no money left, and I would have been looking at student loans and working while doing my degree.  All of that uncertainty pushed me back to making what I thought was a practical decision – move back home to my parents, and go to school there.  So I moved home, and applied to attend Red River College for their graphic design program.  A long story short, during the summer months while I was at home but had not yet started college, one of my dad’s graphic designers announced she was pregnant.  My dad asked if I would fill in her position temporarily, and postpone going to Red River for a year.  I agreed.  It seemed like another practical decision, because I could spend a year making a little money before going back to school.  In the end, I worked for him for seven straight years doing graphic design, and then decided to be at home with my babies when I had James.

So…I read that quote I mentioned earlier, and was struck by the thought of how much I’ve done or not done in my life which was dictated by fear. I went to my Bible, and looked up verses about fear. There are many – and I’m sure quite a few of us have heard that it says “fear not” 365 times in the Bible – once for every day of the year.  Well, that isn’t totally true – in the King James translation it only says “fear not” 108 times.  However, different translations say different things – but one thing is for sure – if you look up verses on fear, anxiety and how love conquers these things, you will find lots – a lot more than just 365!  The verse that I liked best is 1 John 4:18.

God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love.

Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love.

I want to choose this spirit of love instead of a spirit of fear in every part of my life.  If God is love, and He lives in me, then I should be able to do all things through Him who strengthens me – including living a life free of fear.

I believe this choice between love and fear can be applied to so many other areas of our lives as well. If I fear what people think, it shapes the things I say and do.  Some days I fear that I’ll fail as a mom, but if I’m loving my kids every day, with all my heart, then I’m already succeeding.

After having this realization, I found myself browsing the Providence College website to find information about their counselling program.  I feel that fear welling up when I think about the possibility of doing school with kids, the hard work it will take, the time it will take, and the uncertainty of it all.  But if I cast away my fear, all I feel is the amount of love I could pour into a job in counselling, and how I could use it to bring glory to God.

I want to challenge us all to let God’s love cast out our fear, and fill us with love.  You cannot fail in whatever you do if you do it in love.

What fear is holding you back?  What would you do if you lived without fear?