Fear Is Nothing But Love Upside Down

Bringing Love Back to Its Source

For me, this isn’t a recent discovery. It has been a journey of nearly 30 years of self-discovery — learning about myself, my relationships, my fears, my behaviour and, perhaps most importantly, learning what love really means.

Somewhere along that journey, I came to realise that perhaps we have been trying to understand love from the wrong starting point. We often begin with ourselves: How do I feel? Do they love me? Are they showing me enough love? Why don’t they love me the way I love them?

But perhaps we need to go further back.

Back to the source.

The Bible tells us, “God is love.” — 1 John 4:8.

If God is love, then love did not begin with us. Love began with God. And if we are created in the image of God, then there is something profound in what that means for us. We were created by Love, created in His image, and before we ever questioned whether another person loved us, there was already a truth greater than any human relationship:

We are loved.

Love Didn’t Begin With Us

Perhaps this changes the whole conversation.

Love isn’t something we invented, nor is it simply an emotion that exists between two people or something we feel only when somebody treats us well. Love has its source in God, and if God is love, then our capacity to love is ultimately connected to the One in whose image we were created.

That means love is bigger than romance, marriage, friendship or even family. It is bigger than our ability to explain it and certainly bigger than our ability to express it perfectly. We can experience love through people, but people are not the source of love.

God is.

Perhaps when we forget that source, we begin placing an impossible burden on other people. We expect another human being to provide the security, identity, validation and completeness that can only ultimately come from God. And when they cannot meet that expectation, fear begins to enter the relationship.

Fear Is Love Turned Upside Down

This is where my understanding of fear comes in.

Fear is nothing but love upside down.

Love says, “I trust,” while fear says, “I need proof.” Love says, “I know I am loved,” while fear says, “Convince me.” Love creates room, but fear often creates control. Love opens us to another person, while fear can cause us to close ourselves off or protect ourselves from being hurt.

Perhaps fear becomes so powerful because it takes something that was meant to be beautiful — love — and turns it upside down. The love may still be there, but through fear, insecurity, hurt or expectation, we may no longer be able to see it clearly.

If I Am Loved, I Can Love

If I genuinely believe that God loves me, then I do not have to enter every relationship desperately asking another person to prove my worth.

Instead of saying, “Love me so that I know I am valuable,” I can begin from another place:

“I know I am loved, therefore I am free to love you.”

That is a completely different starting point.

When you know you are loved, you do not have to constantly demand love from another person; you are freer to give it. When you know you are accepted, you do not have to control someone else in order to feel safe. And when your identity is secure, you no longer have to make another person responsible for proving who you are.

You can simply walk alongside them.

That does not mean relationships become perfect, nor does it mean that healthy boundaries, honesty or accountability are no longer needed. It simply means love no longer has to begin from fear.

Never Question Love So Quickly

When you choose to love someone, perhaps we should not be so quick to assume that their love is absent simply because it does not look like ours.

Their expression of love may be different from yours. They may not say it the way you say it, show it the way you show it, or understand love in exactly the same way you do. One person may express love through words, while another provides, protects, listens, serves or simply remains present when things become difficult.

Sometimes we miss someone’s love because we are looking for our version of love rather than learning to recognise their expression of it.

That does not mean every behaviour should be excused in the name of love, nor that harmful behaviour should ever be ignored. Love and accountability can sit together. But where love is genuine, perhaps we can become more careful about judging its presence solely by whether it matches our expectations.

Love Creates Safety

When we trust that love is present, something changes in us. We become less defensive and less consumed with searching for evidence that another person really cares. We stop keeping score quite so closely, and instead of spending all our energy trying to establish whether we are loved, we can use more of that energy to actually love.

That creates something beautiful in relationships.

As love grows, the other person becomes more comfortable. They do not feel that they are constantly being examined or required to repeatedly prove themselves. There is room to breathe, to be vulnerable, to be imperfect and still continue growing.

Perhaps one of the greatest gifts we can give another person is the freedom to love us without constantly having to prove that they do.

Love Can Never Be Fully Expressed

I have also come to believe that our expression of love can never be complete.

How could it be?

If God is love and God’s love is infinite, then our human ability to express that love will always be limited. We can say, “I love you,” but three words can never fully contain everything that love is.

We can hug, provide, sacrifice, forgive, listen, protect, encourage and stand beside someone when everyone else has walked away, and yet there will still be more love left to give.

Because love is infinite, but our expression of love is finite.

Perhaps that is why we should be gracious with one another. None of us will ever perfectly express an infinite love through a finite human life. We will misunderstand each other. We will sometimes disappoint one another. We will occasionally fail to communicate love in the way another person needs to receive it.

But imperfection in expression does not automatically mean the absence of love.

The Greatest Discovery May Be That We Are Already Loved

Perhaps the journey is not really about learning how to make someone love us. Perhaps it begins with discovering that we are already loved.

Loved by the One who created us. Loved before we were able to achieve anything. Loved before we could prove ourselves. Loved beyond our successes and our failures.

When that truth begins to settle deeply within us, perhaps we do not have to chase love in quite the same way anymore.

We can receive it, and from that place, we can give it.

My Own Journey

Looking back over nearly 30 years, I can see that some of the things I once thought were about other people were actually about me — my fears, my insecurities, my expectations, my experiences, my need to be understood and my need to feel safe.

At times, it was also my inability to recognise that another person could love me differently from the way I expected them to.

Self-discovery has taught me that maturity in love is not necessarily about finding someone who loves exactly the way you do. Perhaps it is learning how to recognise love when it arrives in a different form.

And perhaps even deeper than that, it is recognising that the love we are looking for in others has its original source in God.

Turning Love Back the Right Way

So perhaps this is what I have learned after nearly 30 years: do not allow fear to make you question love that may simply be expressed differently. Do not demand that love look exactly the way you imagined it would. Do not measure love only by words, and do not make another person responsible for proving your worth.

Most importantly, do not forget where love comes from.

God is love.

We are created in His image, and because of that we are not created to live as people who are fundamentally unloved. We are created to receive love, to give love and to reflect the One who is Love.

When that begins to take root, perhaps fear starts losing some of its power.

Fear asks, “What if I’m not loved?” Faith answers, “I am loved.”

Fear says, “Prove it.” Love says, “Receive it.”

Fear turns love upside down, but God turns it back the right way.

And perhaps that is the journey — from fear to faith, from suspicion to trust, from control to freedom, from needing to be loved to knowing we are loved, and from knowing we are loved to becoming people who love.

Because love did not begin with us.

Love began with God.

And perhaps one of the greatest discoveries we can make in this life is not simply how to love someone else, but to understand that we were first loved by Him.

“We love because He first loved us.”
— 1 John 4:19