Many are familiar with this passage from I John 4, that there is no fear in love, and that perfect love casts out fear.  The two can’t co-exist.  The trouble is, I can know this in my head, but I have to get this to the place where I operate from this place all the time.  In my relationships, I want to always be coming from a place of love, and if I sense in me a need to control the other person, or that I’m afraid, or that my will is being thwarted, I can pretty much tell that I am not operating from love.  Love is looking for connection.  Love is allowing the other person to control themselves, as I control myself.  Love is willing to hear no as well as yes.  Jana has some great teaching about this you might want to check out.

I’m noticing that this is coming at me from many directions right now, that is, I John 4 keeps showing up for me.  So I figure Jesus has some things he wants me to learn, and beyond that, He’s driving change in me that starts with what I truly believe, but ends up manifesting real life in my behavior.  How I act, what I do, tells so much about what I truly believe, doesn’t it?

A big piece of this for me has been some incredible teaching from Danny Silk.  His book Loving Our Kids On Purpose rocked my world when I read it at the beach recently.  It challenges the idea that we can intimidate our kids into obedience, and suggests instead that we are really trying to cultivate freedom.  We want our kids to be able to choose, and to learn from the consequences of their choices while they are still in a safe place with us.  I’m now listening to the audio series.  I wish I had run into this material about 15 years ago before having kids.  I see so many things that I did wrong with Salem especially, and also Charis.  But the cool thing is, Jesus has brought this to me now, and I can make changes from here going forward.  As Graham Cook would say, we are present-future.

My friend Steve Hall has also impacted my thinking about this.  Steve would say that fear has no place whatsoever in a believer’s life, since our Daddy has absolutely everything we’d ever need, and has all things under His control.  The whole journey is about trusting Him, going back to Him, and the things that might create fear are really invitations and reminders to connect with Him again, to open up in relationship.  Steve also has incredible things to say about the unfair competitive advantage that we’ve been given with a redeemend mind, but I’ll have to write about that another time.

For now, it’s enough to say, I want to walk in love.  My kids have been gone this week, so this will be a chance for a new start.  Jeremy Caris said Wednesday that amazing things had been going on at camp & I can’t wait to hear about it from both of them.  Jana and I have had a great week together, but we’ve missed them.  I’m looking forward to the change that Holy Spirit is bringing to my family as we learn to walk out love with one another, to promote identity in Christ, to promote freedom (it was for freedom Christ set us free) and to bring the revolution of the kingdom among us.