To Fear...

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." Proverbs 1:7 and 9:10

The Hebrew translations for these verses above are consecutively as follows: Revering the Lord is the essence of spiritual understanding and the prerequisite of being wise is respecting the Lord. Fear in these verses is not the same as the fear that paralyzes and cripples us. It is a religious fear that is our human response to the presence of God. “This type of fear combines reverence for God’s majesty and respect for His power. It is a reverential regard and awe that comes out of recognition and submission to the divine. Our ability to obtain wisdom from God begins and grows with out ability and willingness to fear Him.” Priscilla Shirer, He Speaks to Me, p.13. This fear is so essential when approaching God and experiencing the magnitude of who He is in our lives.

When I awoke yesterday morning I was struggling with not wanting to go to church. Between a headache, backache and overall ache I just wanted to crawl back in my bed for the morning. I was heavily convicted to attend so I jumped in the shower and made myself go. The experience I had was so unbelievably “fearful” I was blessed for the remainder of the day. I received this intense urging from the Holy Spirit to praise God which I had apparently been lacking in my prayers over the past few months. I have been eternally thankful and grateful to God for delivering me through the pain of grief but have been experiencing God through numbness, an anesthetized heart which was part of my grief.

Yesterday it seemed as if He was removing the medication which had numbed my heart since the death of my sister. The more I praised Him, the more aware I was of my reverence and awe for Him. The more I lifted song to Him the louder and sweeter the music sounded. The smaller and more humble I became at the spiritual understanding of just what God had been doing for me through the last 3 months, the larger and grander the Savior became. However, the most precious thing that occurred was what followed. The intensity of His divine love penetrated so deeply within me and infiltrated my heart with love that I haven’t felt since my heart was put on hold the morning of March 15th, the day my sister crossed over the line to meet her Savior.

My spiritual understanding and wisdom of His love came as a result of fearing the Lord yesterday. What a blessing I would have missed had I allowed the temporary aches and pains of life to win out. When that conviction pulls, push through anything that is competing for your attention.

Conviction will always benefit the heart if we place ourselves in position to receive.