Fear Not part 5
If you're afraid of God you'll run from Him instead of to Him. That's kind of my point for this Rant series. Look at Genesis 3:8, "And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden." After Adam and Eve ate of the tree of death (the tree of knowledge of good and evil) they thought they were going to get into trouble. They were afraid of the consequences of their actions. So they hid. They ran. They tried to avoid those consequences. And that was, to be blunt, the opposite of wisdom. That was making a bad situation worse. See, we think the way it works is, "I messed up, my Dad's gonna kill me." We think we're dealing with a distant, angry taskmaster of a God who is out to get us. Just waiting for us to mess up so He can really slam us. The truth is, "I messed up, I better call my Dad." People make mistakes. That's part and parcel to life. Nobody does it "right" all of the time. So we can run from our mistakes... or we can learn from them. We can keep digging and make things worse and worse... or we can make a U-turn. We can face up to what happened and try to make it right. And knowing God as He is--being reverent, which is what the word "fear" in Psalm 111:10 means--is what allows us to come boldly to the throne of grace in times of trouble and find the grace that we need. If you're afraid of getting in trouble for messing up... that's double trouble. Trouble on top of trouble. That's not what God wants for you. And if you read that story in Genesis, Adam and Eve had a problem because they were naked AND ASHAMED. God didn't have a problem with their nakedness, but they did. So God went ahead and fixed THEIR problem anyway. They tried to cover themselves with fig leaves, but God covered them with Lamb skin. With Himself. With the only thing that could truly cover them. And that doesn't mean sweeping their sin (unbelief) under the rug and covering it that way so that it's still there but nobody can see it. It means transforming them from sinner to saint. Taking away their sin (unbelief) by giving them something (someONE, Jesus, love) to believe in. A believer cannot sin. By defintion. If you believe, you can't unbelieve. But if you're afraid of God you won't listen to what He has to say, much less believe it. If you're afraid of God you'll do whatever you can do to avoid Him. You'll hide from His presence. And that's not wise. The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God." Or has said no TO God. That's the opposite of wisdom. That's foolish. Fearing Him--in a reverential way where we be still and know that He is God--is the beginning of wisdom. Coming TO Him instead of running FROM Him. Including God in everything we do--even if it doesn't turn out the way we want it to or the way we think it should. If you include God--love--from jump street, things will work out the way they're supposed to. Because love never fails. Again, it may not look like we think it should all the time, but it will be what it's supposed to be. It will be what GOD wants it to be. And He knows what it should be better than whatever we think it should be. He knows the end from the beginning. So in the beginning we should just put it in His hands and fear not!