Wisdom for Everyday LifeSample

Turning Fear into Awe

If you fear God, you need fear nothing and no one else. Proverbs teaches us that to ‘fear the Lord’ means to be so captivated by His majesty and so in awe of who He is that other fears find no traction in our lives. So, counterintuitively, fear of God actually induces courage.

To wisely deal with our fears, we first need to focus on our fears: figure out what kind of fear we’re dealing with and how we’ll respond to it. In a broken world, fear is inevitable. It can get under our skin, incapacitate us, strip us of confidence, or drive us to do regrettable things. The incidence of fear in our culture and this rising generation has significantly increased. The media have even dubbed Gen Z as ‘Generation Fear’. It seems that as the fear of God decreases in the world around us, all other types of fear increase.

The Bible talks about two categories of fear: 1) the fear of God, described positively throughout scripture, and 2) the fear of everything else, described negatively. There are so many bonus bi-products to fearing the Lord: it brings blessing and wisdom; those who fear the Lord needn’t fear bad news; God pours out mercy on those who fear Him; through the fear of the Lord evil is avoided; fearing God protects us and keeps us safe (physically, socially, relationally, financially, and so on); the fear of the Lord makes us wise by reorientating our perspectives; and the fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, turning us from the snares of death. Thus, fearing God is the most liberating and life-giving way to live.

To develop a healthy fear of the Lord, the second thing we need to do is find our awe, because that enables us to face and overcome all other fears. Proverbs teaches us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. Fearing God doesn’t mean being scared of Him; rather it leads to wisdom and safety. It gives us a secure fortress and a refuge for our children.

Proverbs also tells us that when we fear God, we can rest content, untouched by trouble. Of course, that doesn’t mean we won’t face trouble. Rather, we can rest content amid trouble. The inevitable shock, grief, and trauma of life needn’t overthrow our contentment, because our hope is in the Lord.

The antidote to every other type of fear is to fear God: to be in awe of Him. When we’re captivated and overwhelmed by who Jesus is and what He has done for us, it fills our hearts entirely, leaving no space for any other fears. May you be filled with reverence for God’s glory, beauty, majesty, power, and compassion, and may the wonder of all that crowd out every other fear.

This plan was adapted from the series, Wisdom for Everyday Life, on RightNow Media. To find out more, visit: https://www.rightnowmedia.org/uk