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. (1 John 4:18)

I live in fear. I live in it all the time. I’ll bet you do, too, even if you don’t admit it.

Fear doesn’t show itself as shaking knees, trembling hands or a quickly beating heart. Sometimes it shows itselv in much less obvious ways. Le me prove it too you.

Today I was proctoring the SAT test at the high school where I teach. The day started normally and I was having as good a time as one can in an all but silent room. Then came the first mistake. In my oral instructions I accidentally misread “work in section 3 on page 4.” Instead, I said, “work in section 4 on page 3.” Understand, if I let students work in the wrong section, that is a misadministration. That’s bad.

I quickly felt the fear of what these students thought of me. “What an idiot. Duh, we can’t work in section 4 before we work in section 3. Loser.” All of this took about 5 seconds after which I corrected the mistake instructing them to work in section 3.

The sense of inadequacy was unnerving. My cool had been blown. I made a mistake. No big whup, right?  We all make mistakes,” I told myself. “Five minutes remaining in section 6,” I later said. Then I looked. There were actually 6 minutes left. The fear of rejection again flowed over me.

Don’t deny you haven’t felt this at some point in your life. We all have. Mistakes are the equalizers, the humblers, the humanizers of life. Men, maybe you walked into a meeting with your zipper down and a white flag flying. Ladies, maybe you tucked your skirt into your pantyhose or your panties. Maybe you trailed toilet paper stuck to your shoe.

On one of the Food Network’s shows a professional chef mistook salt for the sugar that was to go into his dessert. Much as the judges tried to downplay it, it was the determining factor in not selecting him as champion. We fear these kinds of mistakes because we fear the rejection of others. All of us fear not belonging to someone or some group.

We learn this fear of mistakes from the very beginning. We are taught to do good or fear punishment. Often what the child thinks is that the parent has stopped loving him or her when they are corrected. This fear causes him or her to lie about the choices she or he makes, to not try, to avoid decisions.

In society, this fear is enforced in the same two ways: We accept those like us and ostracize or push away those who are annoying, obnoxious or just not like us. So we make sure we are doing what is acceptable by whatever group we want to remain a part of. We also punish in fear. Don’t believe me? Answer this: What do you do when you are driving on the highway and a police car enters into it.

God tells us we belong. He says, “I will never leave you or forsake (read this as reject) you.” (Hebrews 13:5) Jesus told the woman caught in adultery, “I don’t condemn you.” She had been held out as rejectable by those who had caught her. He also told Nicodemus, “God did not send His Son into the world to condemn it, but that the world through him might be saved.” (John 3:17) God’s nature is love not rejection or punishment.

When God does punish (Hebrews 12), He punishes in love. He will allow or even encourage the consequences  of our decisions to happen to us to teach us. He loves us and wants us to choose Him, His nature, His mind and thought process.

As we choose Him, He will reveal more of Himself to us. As more of God’s nature  is revealed in us, we leave less room in which Satan can work. God’s perfect loe is casting out our fears. What God has given us in Jesus is His personal attention, His personal correction and His personal direction for our lives. He is doing this from the inside out.What He is doing is showing us His acceptance. That acceptance transforms us from the inside out. We obey because we know we are loved. We don’t fear His rejection when we make mistakes.

Danny Silk points out in his book, “Loving Our Kids On Purpose,” (2008, Destiny Image Publishing, ISBN 0-7684-2739-8) that it wasn’t Satan who planted the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden; God did. He didn’t hide it atop a barren, snow-capped mountain top where still naked Adam and Eve would not want to go. Nor did He hide it behind a thorn bush, another challenge to our naked couple. He placed it in the middle of the Garden, next to the Tree of Life so Adam and Eve would have to choose.

Choice and discovery are parts of the joy of life. God will not take that way from us. Satan has turned that choice into something that has to be done right or else cause us to be rejected by God. He has made choice something to be feared when we make bad choices. But God’s own perfect love will cast our fears away from the inside out.