[confirmation]

It's amazing when I think I've come up with an idea all by my little old self, and then have it confirmed by a passage in a book I'm reading on an entirely different subject. I'm checking in to so many new things that my mind is scrambling to keep up and my practice is lagging, but that's the way it is with a revolution of willingness. I'm committed to this work and trusting that as I take small steps, someday I'll be able to look back and see how far I've come.

It is impossible to live in love and live in fear at the same time, which is why Scripture says that love casts out fear (1 John 4:18). Now, as kingdom people we are called to live in love, which means we are called and empowered to live free of fear. Because our source of worth, significance, and security is found exclusively in God's love and God's reign, not our own immediate well-being, and because we believe in the resurrection, we are empowered to love even those who threaten our well-being - for this does not threaten our essential worth, significance, or security. We are therefore, not to fear them (see 1 Peter 3:14-18). If we do fear them, it is only because some element of our essential worth, significance, and security is rooted in what they threaten. In other words, fear is an indication that we are living in idolatry, not love. [boyd 180]

In companion with one of the best sermons I've ever heard at Imago Dei yesterday on Matthew 5 and anger, I am reminded that I don't have to fear fear. Fear can become a tool I use to effectively and fearlessly recognize the idolatry in my life. I can either dwell in and around that fear, or accept that sometimes I will be afraid, and recognize that those feelings are a signal for something else going on in my heart. When I am afraid of or for something, the illusion of control and enough-ness has been torn down in that area of my life.

And it's Love that steps in and roots out idolatry, just as it is Love that banishes fear.

This can only be done by the kind of Love that never gives up, that cares more about others, doesn't beg or berate, isn't proud or pushy, does not need to win, does not remain angry or hold on to wrongs or feel self-righteous when it gets the apology it deserves, but instead delights to see any truth accepted, trusts relentlessly in grace, assumes the best, and persists in all of this without end.