There is no fear in love. All of God’s promises to us are awesome, but there is something about this one that catches my heart. Anyone who knows me, knows that this is one of the verses I try to live by, and model my heart after. It’s a verse that has been a banner over my relationship and a mantra through some really hard decisions. There is no fear in love.

There’s a lot of things we all crave to be in this life. We all want to be successful and feel accomplished. Maybe we even have a small timeline in your heads of where we want to be and when. Even though we do our best to trust in Jesus and in his plan, we also have little hopes and dreams within our minds and hearts. We almost all want to achieve perfection in all these areas of our lives. But there is one thing I never want to be, and that is the “Perfect Christian”.

I think as Christians, we sometimes feel this constant pressure of having to be perfect. We set these unrealistic expectations for ourselves of having to always be joyful and thankful and thriving in our walks with the Lord, yet the reality is, it’s not always like that. We come to the point of fearing struggle and hate to admit when we are facing it.

For as long as I could remember, I have always asked a million questions. I question everything and everyone. I want to know who, what, when, why, where and how at all times. It’s interesting, though; I find that with God all I ask is how and why. I never ask who he wants me to talk to. Where he wants me to go, or when he wants me to go there. When God puts me in a situation– especially one that I don’t want to be in– I pray, “Why Lord, and how are you going to get me out of this?”

All of us have this urge and desire to get things right. We convince ourselves that perfection is achievable in one form or another, but in all truth, perfection is not a reality. In the story from our key verse, we learn through the Lord’s servant, Peter, that we’re not going to get it perfect every time in life and our relationship with God. We see failure as a devastating pitfall, but it is something we can grow through and from.