Brave Love

It was the third time I had heard this message:  Are you going to be BRAVE OR SAFE - because you cannot be both.  Each time, I am moved to want to fearlessly change the world.  While I wanted to apply it to my everyday decisions right away, like riding on a motorcycle or pressing on the gas through the yellow, I realized I probably shouldn't use this motto in parenting my children (yet), so I probably shouldn't use it in my smaller, daily choices either.

So, what are the A-21 Campaign's founder, Christine Caine and International Justice Mission's CEO, Gary Haugen, referring to when they empower everyone within hearing distance with these words about being brave or safe?  It's the big stuff.  It's the stuff that's in our hearts to do, but we're not doing because we're too timid and afraid.  Reading 1 John this week, I discovered the reason why:

"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment..." 
1 John 4:18

John W. Ritenbaugh commented on this verse in a way that parallels exactly what I am discovering; "What we are seeing here, in very simple terms, is probably the major reason (other than the fact that mankind is cut off from God) why we do not love more and better.  We are afraid
We are afraid it is going to cost us something
We are afraid we are going to get hurt. 
We are afraid we are going to lose something
We are afraid we are going to be humbled
We are afraid we are going to look bad
We are afraid our neighbors will not accept us
We are afraid we are going to be rejected
We are afraid we are going to be put down
"Fear involves torment."  

We torment ourselves with our fears because we are not believing how much God loves us.  We read about how much He loves us (especially in Romans 8:38-39), and see how much He loves us in this gloriously stunning world we live in, but we are too afraid to trust Him enough to risk loving others.  Since love is the opposite of fear, if we were to live in the perfect love of God, we would be living  courageously loving lives.  Gary Haugen went on to say that there are dreams in us that are formed out of love.  These are the ones we are to fearlessly pursue, not the ones formed from selfish ambition.  He and Christine Caine are just two examples of individuals who are confidently doing what God has put on their hearts to do knowing they are held mightily by the King of Kings.

Think about why we may not go into a certain street, neighborhood, or country.  Think about why we do not open our homes to the stranger, or stop for the person on the side of the road, or spend time in a homeless shelter, or visit someone in prison, or take a job that barely pays enough to make ends meet because it's where our passions are... (insert yours here).  We do not risk living lives of brave love because we don't completely grasp "perfect love".  Fear has replaced love with self (Haugen).  Ouch.

Just in case there are some skeptics who say, what about Proverbs 4:23; "Above all else, guard your heart... " Should this keep us from loving like crazy?  Reading it in context will remind us that it is about keeping our affections from going towards things that will lure us away from God.  If we are guarding or "keeping" our hearts, we are keeping it for Him and His purposes.  We are guarding it from things that will get in the way of what He has purposed it to do.  Guarding our hearts will actually make us love more courageously because our energies and passions will be more focused in one direction.

Peter gave us a perfect example of this.  He was brave in His love for Jesus when he risked walking "You Make Me Brave" by Amanda Cook (Bethel Music) depicts what Peter did before he fell, and what God wants us to do:
out to Him on the water.  However, he did not guard his heart against the waves.  He let the waves convince him that he could not do what Jesus called him to do.

As your love, in wave after wave, crashes over me - I will let you draw me out beyond the shore INTO YOUR GRACE - You make me brave!

Peter was overwhelmed with the love of Jesus, so he let Him draw him fearlessly out into His Grace!  Another one, "No Longer Slaves" may resonate more.  I actually think that if you just listen to this song via the second link below, I probably didn't need to write anything - it'll do its own work.  So, after this, instead of rushing off, just sit and listen and let God destroy your fears.

You split the sea so I could walk right through it.  My fears were drowned in perfect love.
You rescued me and I will stand and sing - I am a child of God.

I wish I could write loudly.  That would be screaming off the page.  There's a reason that these songs ramp us up.  God made us to be transformed by knowing His love.  He made us to be strengthened in his love.  He knows when we proclaim these truths, we begin to realize who we were made to be.  For me, I am fine driving into neighborhoods in Chicago where there is free parking & boarded up buildings (during the day), or going to countries where there is barbed wire and guns everywhere (with others), opening my home to a stranger (often at the demise of my children), and I love going into prisons (this one I can do alone).  But, I often live in fear of rejection or looking bad.  I want to make sure everything I do is perfect so I will be accepted.  That often keeps me from taking risks in areas where God has placed passions inside of me.  But God wants us to risk being vulnerable - externally and internally - so that He can be seen!  Here's my temporary tattoo for the week that I don't want to fade - ever.  May the ink soak itself so deeply into our blood that we actually begin to believe it - and may we all live lives of Brave Love because of it.
Song links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UglO7SGUWk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxkNj5hcy5E

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