How to fight fear, power, and judgment.
some thoughts on love, humility, and curiosity
I’ve probably shared before what my wife and I consider our family motto:
Curiosity is an act of love.
Later this week, I’ll be presenting at a conference with my friend Shelly about what Jesus teaches us about how to use power. In that presentation, we will share a spiral that happens to each of us. It goes like this.
Fear leads us to grasp power. Power leads us toward more fear. More fear pushes us to grasp more power.
And downward we go, clinging to power at all costs because we are terrified.
The Apostle John tells us this: There is no fear in love. Perfect love casts out fear.
This downward spiral of fear and power must be interrupted by something. And the only thing that can interrupt it is love.
It is really difficult to muster up love within ourselves when we are afraid. Love often has to come from an external source to calm our fears. Think of the child, afraid of the dark. Their fear will not abate unless a parent is there, loving them, casting out fear.
One of the things that is related to fear and power is judgment. In order to show our power over something, we proclaim judgment upon it. We offer a bad Yelp review. We give a book 1 star on Goodreads. We complain loudly about films and shows and whatever else to showcase our power.
Fear leads to power and power makes us more judgmental.
The cure to fear is love. The cure to judgmentalism is curiosity.
Several years ago, a friend asked me to go see the new Bladerunner movie with him. I agreed, even though I’d never seen the original Bladerunner movie. I’m certain that I did not understand a lot of things in the film because of my lack of context. I could have gone on IMDB and panned the film for being confusing. I could have been judgmental. But clearly I was in the wrong for never having seen the classic film that was the namesake of this new film. I needed to go watch the original to understand. I needed to be curious.
Curiosity is an act of love. And love casts out fear.
The same is true in so many aspects of life. If you don’t understand something, be curious about it. Cut off your judgment and ask some questions. It’s amazing how a few minutes of curiosity and wonder will draw the poison of fear and judgment right out of a person.
In this way, curiosity is not just an act of love, but also an act of humility. And humility is the cure to power. There is much we can learn from Jesus about humility.
Love calms fear.
Curiosity casts out judgment.
Humility pauses power.
Andy