«There is no fear where love exists. Rather, perfect love banishes fear, for fear involves punishment» (1 John 4:18, ISV).
WILL NEVER forget the experience I had when I was in elementary school. The teacher had asked the youngest ones to plant vegetables in the school garden plots, and we did that. However, the older students, for some reason, pulled out what we had planted and planted radishes. When we went to look at how our work was going, we got frustrated and made a wrong decision: we destroyed what they had done with our little feet (and with the help of some bicycles).
When the teacher discovered what we had done, she called us to give an explanation, but all of us in the class lied instead of accepting our error. We were too afraid of the punishment that was waiting for us if we were to admit our guilt. However, after appropriate investigation was done, everything was discovered.
«For having lied and ruined the work of the students in fifth grade, you will have a double punishment,» sentenced the teacher. «You will have to appear before the students affected and, all together, ask them for forgiveness. Afterwards, you will have one week without recess!’
The fear of the possible consequences of telling the truth brought us a hefty punishment that I will never forget. The worst thing that could happen to a person is living with fear. Many people live in constant fear; some of those fears are justified, but others are imaginary: fear of failure, of running out of money, of illness, of losing the attention of one’s spouse, of not having work . . . Most of these things will perhaps never happen to them.
Whether you have justified or unjustified fears, faith can help you. If you believe that the love of God is real, that love will cast out the fear from your life. «If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . . . Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us» (Romans 8:31-37).
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Take From: Daily Devotions for Women’s 2020
«One Day at a Time»
From: Patricia Muñoz Bertozzi
Collaborators: Lorina Maya & Magda Sanz T
