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. – 1 John 4:8
…is to be obsessed with how much God loves you.
Within the garden walls of this all-consuming preoccupation of how much God loves you, you are a Child playing hide-and-seek, picking flowers and building tree houses with your Father…your every moment being played out under His watchful gaze and with His joyful participation. (Zephaniah 3:17)
Outside of this garden of Eden there are the thorns and thistles of strife, struggle, shame, suspicion and terror. The Genre is Fear, and the overriding theme is “you’re not good enough unless you [fill in the BLANK]. And the sequence of your story’s beats is a see-saw between “HAVING” and “Not Having” whatever BLANK is supposed to make you good enough.
But the great news is that you’ve switched Genres:
But God was merciful! We were dead because of our sins, but God loved us so much that he made us alive with Christ, and God’s wonderful kindness is what saves you. – Ephesians 2:4-5
And in this new Genre – the one you were created to live in all along – you are not your job, your house, your spouse, your grades, your accomplishments, your failures, your feelings, your disappointments, your tragedies, your successes, your sense of self, your net-worth, your network, your competence, or your weaknesses.
You are a Child deeply loved by God.
That’s it.
That’s all you’re called to Be.
Everything else doesn’t matter and everything merely exists in the shadows cast by the abiding Reality that you are a Child deeply loved by God.
And when you a person who is so wrapped up in the love that God has for them (not their love for God)…you’ll find someone who is totally fearless in every aspect of their being.
Selah.