“How can you love God and be afraid of Him at the same time? It is impossible, when fear is the opposite of love.”From Devoción
Imagine how much love a Being needs in order to create another being who can decide not to love Him. That is how God loves you. He made you free, as free to do good as to do evil, and He will never force you to love Him. In the end, that will always be your own decision.
And yet many of us were taught to be afraid of Him. Some teachings even say that we must fear God. I ask myself: how can anyone love someone they fear? If God is the purest and most divine expression of love, why would He want to be feared?
Where there is fear, there is no room for love
Fear is precisely what leads us to act with violence, with ignorance, and to create more pain. We are always afraid that something will be taken from us: our things, aspects of our personality, our dignity. Or we find ourselves facing aspects of ourselves that we know we need to change, and we resist because we are not ready.
In order to live love, you have to be love. And if you are love, where would there be room for fear? The less you fear God, because you are loving Him, the more you surrender to Him and the more you allow Him to be in you, while your ego and your mind take up less and less space. That is devotion.
True devotion is allowing yourself to love to such a degree that you are willing to dissolve completely into that love, free of veils, of restrictions, of ideas or feelings that separate you from your true essence. It would be impossible to get there if you fear Him.
A learned fear
Those who fear God do so because they do not know Him. But when you realize that it is God who dwells in you, how can you live in peace while fearing the One who lives in you?
This is the subtlest and deepest fear that weighs on us: facing all the innate power we have, all that light and benevolence that go beyond our mind. That is why we are afraid of ourselves.
So where did the fear of God come from? Ask yourself where the doubt is: in your heart or in your mind? It arises in the mind. Throughout history so much information has circulated, full of concepts about what God is and is not, and about what you are or are not, that you ended up accepting it. As you identified with the mind, those ideas became yours, and from there the fear of God arose: simply the idea of fearing something unknown.
We were made to believe that God is a distant and external being, a ruthless judge and a relentless executioner. That is not true. It is an idea we learned, and the time has come to move past it. Deep down, it is the mind that is afraid of being destroyed. When you recognize that God lives in you, that doubt fades into the background.
The guilt virus
There is something else that keeps us away: guilt. You feel that your essence is out of your reach because you believe you are not prepared enough for the dignity you assume it demands. The mind is the main distributor of the guilt virus. It makes you feel undeserving of God’s love, far beyond your flaws, your limitations or even your sins.
That is how our heart was poisoned. But look closely: it is not God who moves away. If you cannot feel His love, it is because you strayed from that relationship. You put your attention on what is outside and turned your back on what was closest to you, your own Being.
It is not God who has to apologize for your ignorance, your vanity or your pride. He is waiting for your return.
Imagine how God sees you: you are His most sublime and most beloved creature. He gave us all His qualities and all His power so that we too could create. He did not create servants, but divine children, co-creators like Him. Is there any child who is not worthy of their mother’s love? As a child of God, you are worthy of His love.
Your heart is the temple
Your heart is the only temple before which you should kneel, and you can do it for free. It is an intimate sanctuary where you can be alone with God, without intermediaries. He charges you nothing but love. That is the God who hides behind your whole life, loving you, protecting you, taking care of you.
Life itself shows you this. It gives us so much love every day, beyond the sun, the water and the food. Even when you make hundreds of mistakes, life always takes you in and protects you. Although you may feel it is not giving you what you want, it is giving you what you need, and that is exactly where the love is. The universe loves you; do not doubt it for a single instant.
This relationship allows no contradictions. You cannot hate others while asking God to love you, or wish someone harm and pray for everything to go well for you. And knowing your essence does not mean you can do as you please. Once you come to know your center, you will never again hurt anyone or harbor resentment in your heart.
Step out of fear
The only way to overcome these limitations is to fall in love with your relationship with the Father, to fall in love with who you are and to accept your humanity. You are much more than a person full of desires, resentments and mistakes. You are a divine presence who is here to love and to transform yourself, because that is your true essence.
My invitation to you today is to move from thought to lived experience. Surrender and dissolve into your own light, which is the very light of God. Step out of fear and trust life. Free yourself from the feeling of not deserving this relationship: as long as you are alive, God is your eternal companion, and He is always waiting for you to step into the divinity you are.
Take care of this relationship and surrender to it. It will always be open to you: it is free, easy and within your reach. It is that simple. It is available to you.
From Dr. Zuluan Orion's books: Devoción · Illumination