No doubt God has given us fear so that when, say, our kids run out the back door overseas, someone reminds them of the wide variety of snakes they could be irritating. Fear helps us envision what could happen, and make a plan.

But it’s a slave driver, this fear, when it grows bigger in my mind than God. (Jan Johnson writes, “If we know how to worry, we know how to meditate.”) In these moments or seasons, I am not pulled and compelled by love; I am pushed and provoked and snapped at by scarcity. 

And in Romans 8:15, God likens this brand of fear to slavery. I find it fascinating that His fear-antidote is to be a son. To have God as Father. 

(Tim Keller notes we are all called sons because in ancient times, sons inherited and were privileged. Because of Jesus, even the daughters have the sons’ privileges.)

First John reminds me, too, of the fear-antidote: “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love” (4:18).

And isn’t that what I found in my family’s robbery in Africa, my husband’s malaria? Didn’t fear reveal Swiss-cheese-like holes in my belief in God’s goodness? 

The irony is not lost on me that 1 Peter 2 refers to “pure spiritual milk”—a substance from a parent—as tasting the Lord is good. It is elemental, in need of constant ingestion. 

Fear leaves me reactionary, controlling, vindictive. I reside in the knee-jerk area of my functioning. I’m not acting from trust in a loving, able, and infinite God, but a 40-something human with weak, empty hands. 

I become unloving. I value the safety of rules and control more than wisely considering the heart in front of me. I’d rather issue a consequence rather than shepherd the heart in front of me. As Marguerite Porete wrote in the 12th century, “Faint hearts will not rise to tackle the demands of love. The faint-hearted take the lead in fear, not love, and do not allow God to work in them.” 

But when I begin from the place of beloved daughter, the slave is released. My chains, as the song goes, are gone.