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Do We Know What It Means to “Fear the Lord”?
By Julie | December 30, 2008
When I was a kid I heard people say they feared the Lord. Or they’d say something about how we need to fear God, not this world. On K-Love, I frequently hear a commercial that says, “Fear God, not Man.”
As a child, that seemed backwards to me. I was told to pray and God would help me and protect me. But it was people who weren’t always very kind. So, I had it backwards, I feared man but not God. As an adult I’ve come to appreciate what it means to “Fear God.” But my fear of him is that if I try to live a life without God the protection and guidance he gives me will be removed from my life, and I’ll experience many dark times. I find that truly scary, because as a believer things can be hard. I don’t want to even imagine how I’d get through without God.
Then today I was thinking about the book of Job, and his reason for fearing God. Job was a very prosperous man. He had it all, a wife, kids, big farm, workers to help him run it, and a lot of respect for being righteous. He was so respected even God bragged him up to Satan, calling him blameless. So Satan said, aw, that’s just because you protect him! Let me at him and he’ll curse you.
Poor Job knew nothing of this talk, and soon his life was struck. He lost his herds, his crops and his kids. He mourned the loss. But Job still praised God. So God bragged him up to Satan again. Satan was unimpressed, and told God if he’d be allowed to touch his body, Job would turn on God. God said, fine, but don’t kill him.
Job didn’t know why such terrible things were happening to him, but soon he found himself with painful sores all over his body. He couldn’t get comfortable and was in complete misery. His wife mocked him, his “friends” told him he was being punished for his many sins, and if he’d just repent, God would remove the plague and reestablish Job. So, Job felt even more hopeless.
But he learned to truly fear God, in a way his friends could not comprehend. He feared never hearing from God, a torment because he longed to be told why this was happening to him. He feared if God would not present himself to Job that God would never listen to him, Job wouldn’t be able to plead his case. He feared that God would just continue to torture him, his life would get worse and it was already too much! Job feared he would never understand why, and he wanted understanding to help him make some sense of his torture. Plus, he wanted to know if he had sinned and what his sin was, because he considered himself righteous. It hurt Job to see evil men prosper, while he suffered but could not recount a sin to warrant his suffering.
That gives me new meaning to fearing God! But it makes me think all of us have felt that hopeless. When life has been really hard, and we don’t understand why, and we pray but don’t feel things get better. Isn’t it only natural to fear that God would make it worse? It’s hard when you feel you’ve hit the bottom, and almost inevitably we start to believe it will get worse.
But there is hope it Job’s story, and it may bring hope to yours. As Job sat being ridiculed by his friends, and trying to defend himself, one of his friends took things a bit too far. He felt his wisdom was just too good not to be used to blast Job. Then, the voice of God joined the group, essentially telling the group “Who do you think you are? I am the one who created everything! You are but man, what do you know?” Job, who I assume was ecstatic God finally showed up, humbled himself. Then God forgave him, and because of Job’s humility, he even forgave Job’s friends. Then, Job was restored, he got new, bigger herds, his wife had more children, his crops did well again. He was once again healthy and wealthy, and forever committed to God.
It can be tempting to give up when God is testing us, when we feel we’re at bottom. But Job didn’t know he was on the verge of being restored. In the course of the very conversation he was in God came to him, with insight and a healing. The same could be about to happen to you. If you feel you’ve been in this trial too long, don’t give up, your restoration could be on its way sooner than you think.
Topics: Encouragement, Faith, Life and Living | No Comments »
