Four Years of Fear

“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear.” — 1 John 4:18 (KJV)

Here is something you might not expect from a man people called a saint. For years, Brother Lawrence was convinced he was going to hell.

Beaufort says Lawrence had been “long troubled in mind from a certain belief that he should be damned; that all the men in the world could not have persuaded him to the contrary.” No argument helped. No reassurance stuck. In one of his own letters, Lawrence describes the struggle as even longer: “for the first ten years I suffered much.” He felt that he was not as devoted to God as he wanted to be, his past sins were always in front of his eyes, and he even worried that believing God loved him was just pride. He wrote:

“It seemed to me that all creatures, reason, and God Himself were against me; and faith alone for me.”

What did he do? Not something dramatic. He made a decision, and he talked it through with himself like this:

“I engaged in a religious life only for the love of God, and I have endeavored to act only for Him; whatever becomes of me, whether I be lost or saved, I will always continue to act purely for the love of God.”

And then: “I shall have this good at least, that till death I shall have done all that is in me to love Him.” In other words: even if my fears are right, I will keep loving God anyway.

Eventually he came to see that the fear “arose from want of faith,” from not trusting God’s goodness enough. And then, in his letter, comes one of the most hopeful sentences in the book. He says he “found myself changed all at once,” and his soul “felt a profound inward peace, as if she were in her centre and place of rest.” From then on, Beaufort says, he lived “in perfect liberty and continual joy.”

If you have ever been stuck in a loop of fear about whether God really accepts you, Brother Lawrence has been there, for years. Notice what helped him: not feeling better first, but holding on to God while the feelings were still bad. And notice that the fear was not the truth. God had not rejected him. Perfect love casts out fear, eventually, even if it takes longer than you would like.

One more thing. If fearful thoughts like these keep coming back and will not leave you alone, tell someone: a parent, a pastor, a youth leader, a doctor. Lawrence suffered alone and said he “consulted nobody.” You don’t have to.

One thing to do this week: if there is a fear about God that you keep carrying, write it down, then write underneath it Lawrence’s answer in your own words: “Whatever happens, I will keep loving God.” Show it to one person you trust and ask them to pray with you.