fear factor

Fear of man will prove to be a snare,
     but whoever trusts in the LORD is kept safe.

Many seek an audience with a ruler,
     but it is from the LORD that one gets justice.
                                             (Proverbs 29:25-26)

My first year in ministry was the toughest.

I was the last person hired before a hiring freeze.  We were in a budget crisis.  I had no impressive credentials or prior ministry experience to justify my presence on the full-time staff.  Plus, I had this sense that some of my colleagues were suspicious of me– this guy who came out of nowhere and claimed to hear God’s voice.  (Mind you, this was five years ago, when Newsong was still very much a mainline Evangelical church where nobody talked openly about the supernatural, especially during a Sunday service, and the closest thing we’d get to a charismatic expression of worship was when people closed their eyes and swayed from side to side while singing along to Chris Tomlin.)

The deck was stacked against me.  I thought I had to prove myself.

I thought I had to impress my supervisor, my coworkers, and my senior pastor. I worked hard, did every task I could get my hands on, and hoped that people noticed.  Whenever I did something right, I’d hunger for affirmation, and whenever I made a mistake, I’d beat myself up or blame others for setting me up for failure.

This all came to a head when I worked on my first big event: a conference for 700 people, held at Biola, featuring Brennan Manning.  A lot was riding on this.  And a lot was going wrong, from the planning stages to the registration process to the execution of the actual event.  It was so stressful that during one of the general sessions, while everyone else was enjoying our main speaker, I stormed into the restroom and blew off some steam by punching the walls and repeatedly muttering a word that I am not proud of.

I then went outside and sat under a tree to pull myself together.  That’s when the LORD spoke to me and said, “Be motivated by love, not fear.”

Fear?  What did He mean by that?  I prayed for insight, and I began to see that I had indeed been motivated by fear ever since my very first day on the job.  Fear of disapproval.  Fear of losing my job.  Fear of not being able to provide for my family.  Fear of failure.  Fear of looking stupid.  Fear that anyone who ever thought I was a loser would be right.

I was motivated by fear of man.

I began to question myself.  Why am I here?  To serve God or to please people?  Who is my true Boss?  The exhortation to be motivated by love rather than fear started to make sense to me– I should be serving God out of my love for Him, not out of fear of losing my family’s health insurance.  Once I came to understand and embrace this, an enormous burden was lifted off me and I felt tremendous freedom– I no longer worried about being fired because I knew that if God is the One who called me into ministry, He’ll move me around and take me out if He wants to.  Knowing this freed me up to make decisions based on what I sensed was right and in God’s will rather than what I thought other people wanted out of me.

I stopped seeing ministry as a job.  Instead, it became an expression of love to the One who loved me first (1 Jn. 4:19).

When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?”

“Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.”

Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”

Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”

He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”

Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.”

The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”

Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.”

Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.”

(John 21:15-17)

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