The Fear of the LORD

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7, NIV). I never understood what it meant to “fear” the LORD. It conjured in my mind an image of a small child standing over a colony of ants stepping on the ones they were displeased with. Should I be afraid of a loving and gracious God, a God willing to become a human being with the same frailties as us and who chose to die a torturous death for us? I couldn’t see how I was supposed to have a relationship with a God I was terrified of.

But with further study and recent experience, I understand what it means to fear the LORD. The Hebrew for fear is not how we normally think of fear in our western English-speaking world. It is not to be scared or afraid of a certain individual; it means overwhelming awe and reverence for the sheer greatness of an individual that reduces one to a state of pure humility, the kind of humility leading to self-forgetfulness. I experienced this kind of awe and reverence for God last week when my family and I were generously allowed to vacation at our friend Mike Hackett’s beach house in Carolina Beach.

I would sit upstairs on the third floor and look out the sliding glass door, past the deck, out into the ocean. The light from the sun would settle on the water’s surface and create the image of thousands of glistening diamonds floating back and forth. Compared with the vastness and beauty of the ocean, I felt small, and I was humbled. As I continued to meditate on this feeling, my mind rose to contemplate the one who created the ocean and I felt smaller, and I was further humbled. I felt awe and reverence for God.

Yet, something far more simple and far more significant filled me with a sense of awe. I got to spend my time at the beach with my four-year-old nephew Silas and my two-year-old niece Lydia. Seeing the joy they daily exuded and the excitement they showed over such simple things as winning a game of UNO, I saw the joy and excitement God has weaved into our oft dark world. I was humbled that God allowed me the gift of this experience. Even better, I got to experience pure love. Every time they saw me, they screamed Didju (the name they gave me as their uncle), ran to me, and pummeled me with hugs and kisses, telling me they love me. I knew deep down after this that despite all the evil and chaos and suffering, the core of our reality is love because it was created by a loving God. And again I felt awe for God.

The moments that are simple, that seem mundane and plain—a sunset, or the feeling of the wind on your skin, or the laugh of a child—these are the moments where the fear of the LORD is most real, when it is most palpable. Don’t waste the small mundane moments because its where God’s glory is hidden.