[10] The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom;
all those who practice it have a good understanding.
His praise endures forever!
(Psalm 111:10 ESV)
I've been living in this verse for quite awhile now.
I've always wondered about the idea of fearing the Lord. It just didn't seem right. Why were we supposed to fear God when He loves us? He's our Father and He promises to take care of us, so why should we fear Him?
What really confused me is that this warning is given to us as believers. I mean, I could understand fearing God if I was unsaved. Knowing that He would judge me based on my actions and that unless I was perfect, I would fail that judgment made it simple to understand fearing God; but as a saved Christian, what did I have to fear?
Even crazier is the second part. Fear is the beginning of wisdom?
That's not what Yoda said.
When I was growing up, I went to a Catholic grade school. I was even an altar boy at one point. My teachers were nuns, and their explanation was that instead of fear, what the Bible really meant was something more like awe. It made a sort of sense. The root word for awe goes with awful as well as awesome, so it sort of made sense. The Hebrew word means fear or terror, but also has a secondary meaning of revere, so they weren't just making something up, but that explanation has weakened over the years as I've lived and more recently, as I've learned.
More about that later.
Another common explanation is that when we ask God for help, He helps us in His own way. I have a buddy who once asked God to help him to be more patient.
Growing in patience is a lot like growing in strength; you have to exercise the muscle, tear it down and let it hurt in order to grow. In order to learn patience, God puts us in situation after situation where we can do nothing but be patient. Asking for faith can lead to similar results. You may be placed in a situation where all you have left is your faith.
I've been there; it sucks.
But I came out the other side, and I am better and stronger for the experience.
And that's why I don't think that this is a valid reason to fear God. Yes, I'm afraid of what He will do to teach me what I need to know, but at the same time, I know that if I don't ask for it, I won't get it. (Usually. Jonah had a somewhat different experience. He didn't ask to be a prophet, or to get swallowed by a fish.) When you get right down to it, when God is teaching us, or testing us, we should know that He will always give us what we need to get through the test, to gain the blessings He has in store for us. The process may be uncomfortable, but we know it is for a reason.
And that leads me to what I believe is the real reason that fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
We can't always know the mind of God. What we do know is that He works His Will on the world, to a plan that only He knows. We also know that besides being a loving and merciful God, He is a just God. And finally, we know that as part of His Creation, we are subject to His Will, regardless of what that Will is. It is a terrifying thought to understand that God, in His wisdom, and according to His Plan for His Creation, has created souls that are condemned to Hell.
Paul addresses this very topic in Romans:
[19] You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” [20] But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” [21] Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? [22] What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, [23] in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—(Romans 9:19-23 ESV)
We are God's property. We as human beings, and particularly as Americans, don't want to believe that we are property. We hold a much higher opinion of ourselves. We all like to say we are one with Jesus, and we're His brothers and sisters, and that is true, but it is also true that we are the creation of the Creator. It is our great good fortune that having labored to create us, He loves us and wants us to be with Him. But we always have to remember the nature of our relationship with God.
Which is why fear is the beginning of wisdom. If we are to be in a relationship with God as He desires, then we have to know Him for who He is, not just who we want Him to be. God does indeed have fearful power over us, and it is not through any action of ours that He chooses to love us, which means He could chose otherwise, again through no action of ours.
That's a scary thought and one that will serve us well to keep in mind so we don't become puffed up with pride in our accomplishments or even our relationship with God.
Knowing where we stand, knowing ourselves, is the first step on the road to knowing the world, knowing other people, and knowing our purpose in God's plan. And that sounds like the beginnings of wisdom to me.