The room we share

We often hear the words love and fear cannot occupy the same space. Indeed this is true, as love opens up wide and deep while fear puts people in a state of severe and perpetual contraction. Be that as it may, it can truly be frustrating for us to have to endure fear the moment we place ourselves in a position of love. But, like they say, when in doubt, turn to the Word. That’s right, the Word.

There has been so much tension in the past weeks where even in the private confines of our households, issues on government and governance have become a major part of our conversation. Many of us have expressed concern, disgust, frustration and worst, have quarreled over the issues that are beyond our control – all of which are rooted in fear. Fear for the state of our nation and our future.

Yet the Bible addresses these tensions, especially that between love and fear, head-on, by principally addressing two different types of fear. The first kind is the fear that love destroys, which is found in 1John 4:18 – “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.”

Agape is the Greek word for love and Phobos, on the other hand, is the word for fear – the kind that is full of dread and terror and simply something any of us would run away from. It is here where the Bible speaks of a very specific kind of fear and that is the fear of punishment, condemnation and rejection. The Bible tells us that when you learn how deeply you are loved by God, you no longer have to live in terror of being rejected, measured or punished. True love banishes that anxiety because it establishes absolute safety.

There is a kind of fear, however, that God actually asks from us and that is reverent fear. As the Bible says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10). For some, especially unbelievers, this belief is a massive contradiction but, the fear we are told to have isn’t terror; it is reverence, awe and deep respect. The Bible implies that healthy, mature love for God includes this kind of awe. You respect the boundaries and the power of the one you love.

Today’s political landscape is perhaps the most vivid, real-world manifestation of the dichotomy between love and fear. When you look at the political chaos through this lens, you realize that our current environment isn’t just a battle over policy, taxes or laws. Walk into any coffee shop, scroll through any social media feed or sit at any family dinner table today, and you will feel it: a shoddy, vibrating static electricity. It is sadly the defining frequency of our life at the moment. You can call it the political polarization of the day, the running news cycle of the times or even tribalism.

Whatever you want to call it doesn’t matter. In the end, it is simply the oldest dichotomy in human history. It is the war between love and fear. To me, it seems that fear has many a time taken over because everything around us either looks like a game of survival or a game of chess. At the very least, this is clear in our politics today because when fear takes the wheel, people double down on bad ideas in order to maintain power.

When we look at the political situation in our country today, we should sincerely ask ourselves: what is the single greatest casualty of our current news cycles? It is the sound mind. Humans are not meant to live in a spirit of fear but rather, they are meant to live as 2 Timothy 1:7 states, in one of power, love and a sound mind that is calm, analytical and capable of holding nuance.

Sadly, a sound mind mentality does not drive voter turnout and fear works every single time. The political machine needs us to stay anxious because anxious people build walls and create voters who vote out of spite. The great deception of the politics of our time tells us that our outbursts are noble – we are furious because we love our country so much. But repeatedly we forget that true love builds. It connects. It seeks truth and bears burdens. Fear panics, isolates, and seeks total control.

I certainly do not want to be in a room, more so a country, that instills fear instead of love; however, I want to see a real turnaround because I believe in a turnaround God who I know has good plans for the only country we’ve got. When love and respect rule, we can agree to disagree and instead trust that we ultimately want our country to thrive. It is here that we need to grow and reclaim the room of love because with all the chaos, it is as if almost overnight, a healthy, beautiful love for your own home is mutated into a defensive, aggressive fear of your neighbor when we are told that if one or the other wins in the future, everything we hope for will be destroyed.

It is time that we really took a moment and ask ourselves: am I being called to act out of a genuine desire to build and connect, or am I just being manipulated by someone who profits off my terror? The truest, most enduring architecture of a society is built in the quiet spaces where the breathing human being in front of us is the most important thing to know, understand, protect and, most of all, love. We must decide to choose connection over contempt and we don’t have to surrender the room of our minds to the architects of fear. Everyday we can all choose to do one thing – to intentionally let love have the final word and this is a power no election cycle can ever take away from us.

Our history is a reflection of all the messy things that have happened since time immemorial – times when fear screamed the loudest and the future felt impossibly fragile. We are living in very tumultuous times, yet history has also shown that every turning point didn’t come from the loudest voices of division, but from the quiet resilience of ordinary people who refused to stop caring for one another as God commanded. When we finally pause and truly reflect, the heavy armor we’ve been forced to wear begins to drop away. Fear wants us to believe that we are entirely alone in a hostile wilderness. But love invites us to look closer, to reach out a hand, and to realize that we are all just walking each other home through a storm.

The chaos outside will eventually run its course, but the quiet grace we extend to one another right now – the listening ear, the shared smile, the benefit of the doubt – is the only thing that will ever truly heal us. The chaos of our times will eventually end, but the love we choose to extend today is eternal. We have upon us this heavy armor but let us not forget that we are called to a much higher calling and that is to be caretakers of each other’s humanity, where we choose to heal rather than harm.

True selfless love is the ultimate proof that a person has a genuine relationship with God, who is the source of all love. Behind the furious headlines and the defensive walls, the human heart just wants to be safe. The chaos of politics can lock us in a room of panic, anxiety and division, but we don’t have to live there anymore. By reason of this, I say the room I choose to be in is love, for as 1 John 4:7,18 says: “Let us love one another for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God... There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out all fear.”