Who do you respect more?

The fact that this is my fourth blog posting this week from the fifteenth chapter of 1st Samuel is probably a reflection of how much the insights from that story shaped and influenced my life back in the 1980s. Probably the biggest thing was the understanding this passage gave me about what the Bible means when it speaks of the "fear of the Lord."

The "fear of the Lord" is a strange sort of term - especially when you consider that the God who loves us so much tells us that we are not to fear because He is with us. The commands, "Fear not," " Do not fear," "Don't be afraid," and other variations of the same, appear more than 100 times in the Bible. So, having the fear of the Lord in our lives is obviously not the same thing as being afraid of God. God's love for us is perfect and the New Testament tells us, "There is no fear in love, because perfect love casts out all fear. A person who fears has not fully experienced God's perfect love." (1 John 4: 18)

I remember, as a teenager, grappling with how I would explain the meaning of "the fear of the Lord." I came up with the definition that, "The fear of the Lord is when I love God so much that I have a holy fear of doing anything that would hurt Him or make Him sad." It's a horrible feeling to know that you have hurt someone, perhaps a friend or family member, that you deeply care about. Another definition that I wrote in one of my teenage journals was, "The fear of the Lord is when I respect and honour God so much, that I care a lot more about what He thinks than about what my friends think." Believe me, as you learn to care more about God's opinion than people's opinion, when you care more about disappointing Him than about disappointing your school friends, that's a powerful antidote to teenage peer pressure. I saw that in my own life, and I've had the privilege of seeing it in the lives of dozens of young Christians over the past three decades.

I used to pray daily for wisdom and for the fear of the Lord. I had a little piece of paper - sometimes in the cover of my Bible, sometimes taped to the wall next to my bed - that said, "Don't forget to pray for the fear of the Lord." What prompted me as a teenager, and as a young woman in my twenties, to pray so regularly for this particular characteristic? I think it was the revelation I had, from this episode in the live of King Saul, of what it looks like when we don't have it, and how tragic the outcome can be if the fear of man is stronger than the fear of the Lord in our lives.

We left Saul (see this morning's posts, below this one) at the point where he was making excuses for his "partial obedience" and blaming others for the fact that he hadn't fully followed through with what God asked him to do. The prophet Samuel tells him, "Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, God has rejected you as king." At these strong words, and at the prospect of losing his kingship, Saul is shocked into self awareness and finally acknowledges his disobedience. "I have sinned," he says in 1 Samuel 15: 24.  "I violated the Lord's command." He even goes on to identify the root of the problem: fear of man. Was he acknowledging a deeper issue in his life or was he still making excuses when he said, "I was afraid of the people and so I gave in to them." ?

Saul feared the people more than he feared God; he cared more about what the people thought than about what God thought. It was on noticing this dynamic, back in my reading of the 1980s, that I saw a clear illustration of what the writer of the proverb meant when he said, "The fear of man will prove to be a dangerous trap for us, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe."

But it's what happens next that perhaps made the biggest impact on me. Desperate at the thought of losing face and losing the kingdom, Saul grabs at Samuel's garment and it tears. Samuel uses this as a prophetic picture of how the kingdom will be torn from Saul and given to someone else. (verses 25 - 29.)  Yet, even then, Saul cares more about saving face in front of the people than about being in right standing before a holy God. He says, "I have sinned, but please honour me before the elders and the people." (vs 30) And so Samuel goes back with Saul to worship the Lord… but for Saul, it's kind of a charade. He's worshipping God outwardly, but in his heart, he hasn't been unreservedly committed to obeying the word of the Lord.

I was probably only in my early twenties at the time, but I remember feeling very shaken by this graphic example of how the fear of man works itself out in a person's life. It further cemented my desire, born in my teenage years, to be a person who fears the Lord more than anyone or anything else; to be someone who cares more about what God thinks than about what others think; to be someone who is willing to acknowledge sin, publicly if necessary, rather than hiding it and trying to "save face."

Thirty years have passed since then, and I've discovered that the journey of fearing the Lord and responding to Him with willing and wholehearted obedience is a journey that lasts a lifetime. There will always be new frontiers, new challenges, new temptations to compromise and settle for second best. Of course, they look different as we grow older; perhaps they're more subtle. Respecting and honouring God the most needs to be a lifelong choice; perhaps there will even be seasons where it needs to become a daily choice again. But the good news is that it becomes more instinctive. As our love for God grows over the years, our desire to honour and please Him in all things will grow too…. and we will more naturally obey Him quickly and unreservedly.

And the fear of the Lord brings so many blessings with it. Try a Bible study on it some day. It's a key to wisdom and knowledge, to life and health, to protection and safety, to rest and satisfaction. My desire for 2014 has not changed all that much from the things I wrote in my teenage journals: I still want to honour God more than anyone or anything else, and bring joy to His heart by life choices that are in alignment with His character and ways.