Be Afraid!

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;

    fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Proverbs 1.7

 

          My favourite agnostic and I were having lunch. I value our friendship for it has survived decades, and she is one of the few that appreciates my off-kilter sense of humour. We touched on matters of faith, in a number of ways I think she brings more wisdom than I to this discussion. She relayed a story when she had offended a woman by making comment that if you “fear god, you should get a new god.” Then added the sentiment “If you are good because you fear God, you are not a good person, you are a bad person on a leash.”

We are told to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our might. (Deut 6.4) To paraphrase we are to love God with the totality of our being. This includes our imagination. I think particularly it includes our imagination. We diminish imagination as being childish, yet how much of our day is spent in imagining. Is not remembering an act of imagination? How often do we imagine giving some person that has offended us a “piece of our mind”? Is not anticipating seeing our loved ones, a good meal, or favourite activity an act of imagination. Is not great entertainment also an act of imagination? How often is our imagination focused on fear?

          Fear is a powerful force. It motivates us like little else. Over the years I have experienced fears over health issues, poverty, being alone, dying, just to name a few. The usefulness of fear is that it keeps us, some of us, from doing stupid stuff. There is a truth about fear. Fear is instinctual, and it is beneficial. In the process of evolution, those who did not experience fear often wound up being lunch. Fear drew our attention to the grasses and branches that moved. It drew our attention to the sounds that heralded danger. Our reaction to things that go bump in the night was our survival.

          Despite the teachings of Jesus to not be anxious, and John’s instruction that “perfect love casts our all fear,” we are told that “fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.” In our desire to keep God friendly, we down play the role of fear. We suggest synonyms of “awe, respect, wonder, and regard.” Then Paul and Timothy tell us to “work out our salvation with fear and trembling.”

          I think the authors of the scriptures that tell us to fear God meant it. The kind of fear that interrupts your day. The fear that keeps sleep distant from us as we lay in bed. That worry that takes the taste of food away! Our preoccupation with distress. When they wrote fear, they meant fear.

          The thing about fear, is that shows us what is of value. If we have fear regarding something, that something has value. If that thing has no value there is no fear. It is a simple as that. A parent’s greatest fear is not something happening to their selves, it is something happening to their children. For lovers, it is calamity befalling their loved one. The greater the importance to one’s life the greater the fear.

          When Jesus tells us not to worry, it is a statement of value. We are not to worry about temporal matters, “For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?” Mark 8:36. In Matthew he seems to clarify this, And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. (Matt 10:28) (I realize I will have to get around to addressing the doctrine of hell, but that will be later.)

          There is so much that marriage has taught me about relationships. When I think of fear of God, I think about fear of my wife. Not that she has a temper, she does, but I would never want to anger her, or hurt her, or disappoint her. During the past two decades of our marriage, some of the toughest times have been when I have messed up. While her emotional reaction can be hard; it is my emotional reaction that has been the hardest. Thus, the fear of my wife has kept me in-line with our relationship, particularly through the more challenging times but also in other ways.

Let me give you an example. I smoked my first cigarette when I was ten. There were days when some of the kids in my neighbourhood would buy a pack of cigarettes and then go riding our bikes around the neighbourhood. Since then, I smoked on and off for decades. Occasionally, I would get scared of dying a painful death from lung cancer or worse emphysema. On those times I would quit smoking, a few of those times were for two years. Always I would return to smoking; usually starting with cigars.

          One night, the Feisty One and I are laying in bed talking. She talked about how much my smoking bothered her, that she did not wanting me dying young. A few weeks later, I stopped smoking, that was over  fifteen years ago. While it may seem particularly un-Christian, the fear of my wife is a greater influence in my daily life than the fear of God. After all, I had tried to quit smoking to be a good Christian on numerous occasions.

          I think the call to “fear the Lord” is a call to love and value God.