Sacrifice that Kills Fear

"Lovers may think that they have the highest good, but it is not so. No, love your beloved faithfully and tenderly, but let love to your neighbor be the sanctifier in your covenant of union with God. Love your friend honestly and devotedly, but let love for your neighbor be what you learn from each other in the intimacy of friendship with God! Whatever your fate in romance and friendship, whatever your privation, whatever your loss, the highest still stands: love your neighbor! You can easily find him; him you can never lose. In this sense love is blind. Your neighbor is the absolutely unrecognizable distinction between one person and another; it is eternal equality before God - enemies too have this equality. To love one's neighbor, therefore, means essentially to will to exist equally for every human being without exception."

-Kierkegaard, Provocations (pp. 99-100)

How many times have I withheld from someone in need that which I would gladly have given to a friend? How many times have I been too busy to listen to one who is hurting, but have had all the time in the world to listen to a friend? I am far too inconsistent in my love. There is a fundamental doubt in me - a doubt that by choosing to walk in love, my all-important needs will be met. This is why possessiveness creeps in. This is how circles of self-love are formed. It's time to believe again that the merciful are indeed blessed. Jesus didn't call us to love our neighbor solely because it is the right thing to do, but because it blesses us. I need to stop feeding the idea that loving my neighbor is where "ministry" happens, and that my friendships are where "fellowship" happens. Could it actually be that sacrifice builds me up more than being "ministered to"? It's so biblically crazy it just might work - I just haven't had the courage to try it much.

I heard someone speaking recently about this kind of loving. He described a person who was so busy chasing after the person they wanted to learn from that they missed the person who was chasing behind them. If we could just have the courage to turn around, to do a 180 every once and a while, we would find at least one person chasing us; or at least one neighbor who needs our help. But what keeps us looking ahead? What keeps me from turning around and feeding the needy? It could be a fear that I will become the needy one if I give too much away. But can that happen?

In those precious few moments when I actually manage to love someone who can't love me back, it's amazing how the fear seems to fall by the wayside. It's freedom. I may constantly fear losing a loved one, or being rejected by a friend, but where do those fears disappear to when I am handing out food to the poor or giving clothes to an orphan? Where does the self consciousness go when I'm visiting the elderly? Where is the insecurity when I pray for my enemies? The fear is suddenly and surprisingly gone. Simply by loving my neighbor, I manage to navigate my way through a minefield of fears. This is what is meant when the scriptures say that "perfect love casts out fear." If I am honest, I often feel more afraid with my friends than I do with my "neighbors" - those orphans and widows whom I love and expect nothing in return. I think it's an indication that the love is purer in that place. The more "real" the love is, the less fear enters the equation.

I want the courage to turn from possessiveness and embrace the sort of love that gives freely and is free from fear. It really is better - more enjoyable in the Spirit. Sacrifice really is the safest place. I long to know the Father well enough to walk in the backward ways of the Kingdom. I'm starting to see the way, now it's time to move my feet.