“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28 NIV)”
In the 1920s, a physiologist named Walter Cannon described what he called the acute stress response. It is also known as the fight-flight response. In subsequent years, physiologists and psychologists have continued to build on and refine Cannon’s work. Today that response is either fight, flight, freeze or fawn.
The literature defines the responses this way;
• To fight is to confront the threat aggressively.
• Flight means you run away from the danger.
• When you freeze, you are unable to move or act against the threat.
• Fawn is the response of complying with the attacker to save yourself.
These are responses to a threat; however, we find ourselves responding the same way to love. Either, attacking the love that is given to us, running faster than Usain Bolt in the opposite direction, taking no action for or against the love proposition and finally some comply to save themselves.
The Bible says, in the book of Jeremiah 31:3 that God loves us with an everlasting love. Then later in John 15:13, Jesus shows this great love by laying His life down for us, while we were in rebellion against Him (Rom. 5:8). Friends, such great love demands a response!
How have you been responding to God’s love for you? If you’ve been fighting, stop and surrender. You may be a runner, come, rest and be refreshed (Matthew. 11:28). Are you immobilized and frozen? You can make a decision to accept, reciprocate and share the love to family and friends. Finally, the fawning response may be the best of all, mainly since it saves. A fawning reaction to the guidance of God’s love transforms our lives by renewing our hearts.
Prayer: Father, help me to respond to your love in a fawning way. Amen
By Obed Babb
