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With beads of sweat running down his face, Brad turned to me and said, “There’s nothing like when your teenage daughters scrawl lipstick all over the walls, because you told them they couldn’t do something. I hate being treated like crap in my own home.”

On this hot day as Brad put in new carpet in our home, I pondered again the damage fear does to our relationships.

FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) a marketing tool that works with teenage girls and indeed us all. But when we use fear, we will suffer its consequence, punishment. 

Punishments says, “I don’t like what you just said, so I’m going to rage… lipstick hits the wall.”

We see it all round us. We do it to each other.

No doubt the emotion of fear loves to roar at us, “You are powerless”. It always says the same thing.

In an attempt to dodge that bullet, we instinctively reach for something to protect ourselves.

Punishment isn’t some socially constructed, cultural phenomenon, it is a universal human experience with deep spiritual roots. 

It is a choice to protect self first, over protecting “us” and the connection we need the most with each other when we are afraid.

God wired us at every level, physical, emotional, mental, relational for connection. Right from the beginning of time in Genesis 1, we see in the text that we were designed for connection. Designed to walk in the cool of the evening together with love itself, free from threat, safe in trust.

The Garden of Eden was made as the land of blessing, the fulfillment of the deepest yearnings and capacities where we were connected to the perfection of love, God and with each other. Heaven on earth.

We were designed to function out of connection with God and one another. 

1 John 4:18 says, “Love has no fear, because perfect love casts out all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love.”

This is the problem with fear, it always has some threat attached to it. 

If I show up and say something or do something you don’t like, fear says “I don’t like that, you scare me, I will punish you so you don’t do that again. I will ghost you. I will slander you. I will distance myself from you. I will do all this to threaten you.”

The irony is when we do this, we are admitting we feel powerless, and this is a lie. 

When we choose self protection and punishment, we are very powerful. So powerful it damages our connection and cuts us off from that flow of life with others. Worthiness, value, self respect, dignity all come under threat when we choose punishment. Brad the carpet layer testified to that.

Scholar Tim Mackie explains, in Hebrew the word translated ‘punishment’ is the word ‘Avon’. Avon refers to not only distorted behavior but also to crooked consequences – the hurt people, the broken relationships, the cycles of retaliation.”

In a world aggrandizing fear, punishment thrives and love is cast out. Fear casts out love, or love casts out fear. The two cannot coexist.

I don’t know about you, but I am sick and tired of hearing fear and punishment. It’s time for love to be noisy, for love to cast out fear. Love is powerful, most powerful because it always shows up saying it simply is not afraid of what you do or show me. 

Love is Jesus. Jesus isn’t afraid. His lack of self protect, actually covered us. That’s what love does.

Jesus said, “The world will know you by your love for one another.” (John 13:34) Let’s be known for what we love, not how we self protect.