The Fear of Commitment I Didn’t Expect to Still Be Fighting

The fear of what God’s love might ask of you doesn’t shrink when you avoid the hard passages in Scripture, but it does get outgrown when you CHEW on His love while sitting in the discomfort. I learned that the slow way, through CHEWs that started strong in the morning and went flat by afternoon for reasons I couldn’t name.

C.H.E.W. with Me

New here? What is CHEW? — a 30-second practice that grows into a day woven with God’s love.

C – Clarity: Why My CHEWs Go Flat When I Read How the Disciples Died

There are six specific reasons Christians struggle to receive God’s love at a heart level — not just know it, but feel it settle in:

• Do-Orientation — earning what’s already been given, because doing feels safer than receiving.
• Fear of Commitment — sensing that being fully loved means your life stops being your own.
• Misunderstanding Love — confusing God’s love with romance, or unconditional love with approval.
• Shame and Identity — an identity built on shame or self-righteousness that can’t survive being loved.
• Sunk Cost of Pride — accepting grace feels like admitting years of performance were wasted.
• Need for Control — love has to be received, not managed.

I fight the second one. Not in theory — in my actual day.

When I read the passages where Jesus tells His disciples how they’ll die, something in me still tightens: God might have me endure something horrible for Him. When that fear rises, my shorter CHEWs go flat — more lip service than encounter. Fear of commitment doesn’t announce itself. It quietly shortens the moments where love was supposed to land.

H – Hear: The Love That Says “Follow Me” Right After the Hardest Sentence

“‘Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.’ (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this he said to him, ‘Follow me.'” (John 21:18–19)

This happens on a Galilean shore after the resurrection. Jesus has just restored Peter — three times asking, “Do you love me?” to answer three denials. Then, from inside that restoring love, He tells Peter how he will die.

Then two words: “Follow me.” The Greek, akolouthei moi, is a present imperative — not one step, but keep on following. Jesus doesn’t wait for the fear to pass. He calls Peter forward with the fear still in the room, and the call comes from the same love that refused to let Peter’s failure be the last word.

E – Exchange: Trading Avoidance for CHEWing Inside the Fear

Early church tradition records that Peter asked to be crucified upside down, not considering himself worthy to die as Christ did. The apostles, beaten for Jesus’ name, left “rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name” (Acts 5:41). And in my own recent stretch — recovering from surgery, then hit by a virus a week later — there were moments God’s love was simply bigger than the worst of the pain. Not instead of the pain. Bigger than it. That’s the trade: give up avoiding the hard passages, and take up CHEWing on God’s love inside them.

This changes how I lead. When I set a stretch goal for someone, I stop minimizing their discomfort and point them to a love strong enough to rise inside the stretch, not around it.

Because God’s love is bigger than whatever you’re afraid He might ask of you, how does that change the way you lead someone through their own stretch goal this week?

W – Walk: Sixty Seconds Inside the Fear You’ve Been Avoiding

Set a timer for sixty seconds. Name the barrier from the list that actually fits you — not the most spiritual-sounding one, the true one. Read John 21:18–19 again and ask what God’s love says about that specific fear. Then send one short message to a teammate in a stretch right now, pointing them to the same well instead of trying to shrink what they’re facing.

Closing question: Which barrier has been shortening your time with Him — and which passage has it kept you from?