I stood towards the back of the room, my eyes closed, the atmosphere filled with the sound of several hundred voices all joined in song, the well-rehearsed band creating a backdrop of music for their lyrics. I'm fairly sure that by all outward appearances I looked the picture of serenity, however inside, my stomach kept twisting with anxiety. Suddenly a refrain that I had heard sung before began to play in my mind, ordering my thoughts into alignment with peace.
"There's no striving in Your love. "
In a few minutes my husband and I would be walking to the front of the room to share words of encouragement that we felt God had given us for our community. I was battling with a feeling of having to perform when all I wanted to do was what came most naturally to me: love people.
Sometimes, in wanting to be good people and desiring to do the right thing and not fall flat on our faces in the process, we can find ourselves striving for perfection and in doing so fall out of love.Staying in love means we are still able to see one another; we are still able to connect as one human to another.
I began repeating the refrain over and over in my mind, "there's no striving in your love..." We made our way to the front and as soon I stood, with mic in hand, looking out over the sea of faces, I felt at home, the anxiety melted away and I knew I had stepped out of a fear of man and into a heart of love.
You see prior to looking into those beautiful faces, all I had was my imagination of what could happen next...I would stumble over my words, say the wrong thing, offend somebody...That's what fear does. It presents a list of possibilities to us that are founded in deception with the sole purpose of tripping us up, holding us back from really shining in our full potential.
Think about it in relation to someone you are close to: a family member, spouse or best friend. When you are with them you don't have to try to be somebody or something, you simply get to be. When we are in love we no longer have to strive because everything that comes out of us is in the overflow.
Back in the room with my church community, we left the platform and began interacting with people whose hearts and journeys had connected with the few words of encouragement we had brought with us. The rest of the evening began to unfold, like the opening of a flower's petals to the morning light, with such beauty and vulnerability. I watched hope return to people's hearts and witnessed bodies that had been riddled with pain receive healing.
I was in awe and fear was absolutely nowhere to be found.
