Recently, I learned I have a serious handicap: I don’t live in fear. 

It’s an inverted notion, I know, since living in fear itself tends to indicate a handicap of sorts. But I’m talking about fearing God. God struck me with this peculiar idea during one of our predawn meetings. Before, I always considered “the fear of God” as rather Old Testament, outdated, if you will, that is, after Jesus came on the scene. I was living in the era of Grace, free and fun, and…I know, I know, Truth too. But, as a Christian, my salvation already sealed by the Holy Spirit, I hardly worried about Hell at all. Except for those bad days at the office, you’d rarely find me cowering in the closet corner at the thought of God sending me packing to Babylon, if I stepped out of line. Although, now that I think about it, He very well could, if we reinstate the draft.      

But I was missing the point. There’s real power to be had in fearing God. And I was just as surprised as anyone to find myself suddenly praying for the gift of this holy fear. After my many failed attempts to live like Jesus, who is sinless where I am not, I realized that fear–fear of messing up, fear of not being liked, fear of God bailing on me, fear of fear itself (props to FDR)–bullied me like the high school hoodlum (no offense, man…please don’t hurt me!). As it turned out, fear was often the ringleader to my compromising my faith. It loomed over me as an ever-present obstacle to my living life to the fullest, how Jesus said. I soon discovered a secret Peter crouched inside my heart, waiting to leap at the chance, given the right mix of scary circumstances, to deny his Savior three times, even more.

When I finally got it through my thick skull that fearing God wasn’t a bad thing, I started to see the benefits it offered. It boiled down to a near-mathematical equation: fearing God equals fearing nothing else. Wow! It’s like having a super power! If I could fear God, let’s see, I could face kings, wild beasts, and even the uncertainties of the Wendy’s acquisition.

Of course, this did not mean all the symptoms of fear would magically disappear. Oh, I knew my legs would still turn to spaghetti and my voice weaken the next time I was elected to stand up and give an impromptu speech to a room full of strangers (which I hope never happens). But–and here’s the big “but”–if I had the gift of fearing God, fear would no longer stop me from doing God’s will. How great!

This new revelation made me want to kick back and smoke a big freedom stogie (although I strictly smoke secondhand). But the image I’m trying to conjure is that of a free man, a truly free man, free in the inside, no matter the hostile environment, free to live the good life, free because of fear–the fear of God. 

Whew! Now, for my next act, I’m going to jump out of a plane. Not really, the thought of it scares me to death.       

Categories: Christianity