Giving Up fear

(Note: Today’s guest blog is from Amy Durkee, the director of the Spiritus Christi Mental Health Center. Thank you, Amy, for sharing your wisdom with us!)

I decided to give up fear for Lent. I know it sounds funny and impossible. And it is – both funny and impossible. But when I think about what keeps me from fully following Jesus, it sure seems like fear is much more of a barrier than my love of chocolate. Over the past several years, I’ve been struck again and again by how debilitating our individual, communal, and institutional responses to fear are. So, as silly as it may sound, I decided that giving up fear for Lent could be a worthy endeavor.

Knowing that giving up fear would be impossible, what I’ve asked God to help me with is just becoming more familiar with fear in my daily life – where and when it shows up and how I respond to it. I know I won’t overcome all my fears in 40 days, but I’m committed to familiarizing myself with what’s going on so I can work toward living in more alignment with Jesus. So far, I’ve learned some very interesting things about how fear operates in my life. It’s been equal parts discouraging, embarrassing, enlightening, and empowering. I’ve discovered, for example, that I have such ingrained habits related to fear that I often react unconsciously (or half-consciously) when I feel fear or even anticipate feeling it. Two most common signs I’m in fear mode are judgment and avoidance.

I find that mantras helpful when I’m working to change a behavior. They’re little signposts that call me back to my intention. Sometimes I have to work to come up with a mantra and other times they come to me as gifts. That’s what’s happened this time around. I asked God for help with this back in late February, and pretty quickly I was reminded of these mantra-worthy lines:

 “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear . . .” (1 John 4:18); and

 “. . .for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline” (2 Timothy 1:7).

And from on of my favorite songs (Get Together by The Youngbloods):

“You hold the key to love and fear all in your trembling hand.”

What strikes me about all of these verses, whether from the Bible or modern music, is that they all contrast fear with love. It makes sense, then, that I would experience fear as a barrier to following Jesus, because one thing that Jesus is abundantly clear about is that his (and consequently our) mission is to love. To love, and love, and love some more.

In fact, I think it’s this clarity of mission that is what sustained Jesus throughout his ministry. In the face of tremendous injustice, bone-crushing fatigue, the obtuseness of his followers, and his own impending torturous death, Jesus stayed true to his mission.

Jesus demonstrates for us a spirit of power, love, and self-discipline. He shows us how perfect love drives out fear. Holding the key to love and fear in his hand, he chooses love every time.

I’m not saying this is easy. Some people are easier to love than others. Some situations are more frightening than others. Sometimes it’s hard to figure out what the loving thing even is in a given situation. All I’m saying is that, once we get clear about our mission and values, it makes knowing how to respond a heck of a lot easier.

How many times have you been a participant in or witness of this exchange: In the face of some heroic act – like a person rushes in to a burning building to save a stranger, or a parent continues to go on after the death of their child, or someone chooses to forgive after being horribly hurt by another – and the conversation goes something like this, “I don’t know how you do it. You are so courageous!” And what does the other person say? “I didn’t have a choice. I just did what I had to do.”

This is where I think Jesus is inviting us to go with him. To the place where, because of our commitments and values, giving in to fear simply isn’t a viable option. The love drives out the fear. When we know our mission is to love no matter what, it makes the path forward a little clearer.