The Fear of the Lord

I've been thinking a lot about the fear of God lately. I've heard it all my life as I've grown up in church. I remember being in church and hearing that the sermon would be on the fear of God. My first thoughts were, "Good! Because I thought God was someone to feel safe around! The fear of God sounds more like a contradiction that would disprove God rather than solidify the argument for Him. I don't remember anything about the sermons. Maybe I was too young to grasp the concepts, or maybe the pastors were poor communicators. Either way, I decided it must not be that important because no one could explain it and no one wanted to talk about it.

Turns out it is kind of important. In fact, it is paramount to understanding God.

So I sit with my brothers in Christ once a week...and we confess. Many times we confess the same things over and over again. Each week we have things to celebrate and things to consistently throw our hands up and push down our heads for the fact that no one knows how to help. We believe that being apart of an older group of Godly men would help. I've begin to wonder why we think older men would know what to do. I don't know many older men with the depth that I would trust to give me sound advice. I know more acquaintances through church that I trust more than my own dad or family. I believe that being apart of an older group of men will help us tremendously! I can't wait to get involved. My point is that they are not Spiritual Titans just because they have lived longer. The one's who we will seek out for counsel are overflowing of God's grace because they "practice the Fear of the Lord"!

David says Psalm 111:10 "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever" This seems to say that God isn't going to just smack us in the head one morning and say, "Happy birthday! Here is some wisdom, understanding, and a dash of fear for good measure! You're welcome!" We have to PRACTICE? I wanted to play piano and learn to read music, but not as much as I didn't want to practice! When I sit down at the piano and look at the music that I can't play, I don't try to play it and get frustrated saying, "Why can't I do this????" I know exactly why I can't do it! I don't care enough to sit there and practice.

I want to stop struggling in some of the areas that war against me. My doubts and lack of faith are simply haunting. Many of my brothers feel the same way about their own lives. However, we don't care enough to do anything about it. Once a week, we say, "God help us this week." Is it absurd or just plain insane to think that this next week will be better for me if I don't seek God? If I'm not saturated in Him....why would I expect to understand Him?

Matthew 7:22 "On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’"

Hebrews 6:4-8"4 For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6 and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. 7 For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. 8 But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned."

Maybe this is poor theology. Maybe I'm just a 23 year old with no understanding of these verses. But maybe they don't scare you like they scare me. I'm not saying I live in petrifying fear of God...I'm saying I want to live in an encouraging fear of God. And maybe through fear and trembling I can come to understand what that means. Because if I'm honest.....I have no idea what the Fear of the Lord is. But I know that it scares me into the loving arms of the Father! And that is where I find relentless sanctification and the most beautiful rest I could imagine.

Sisters

I remember watching an episode of F.R.I.E.N.D.S., in early high school, where Joey was very passionately explaining to "the girls" that no guy pursues a relationship with a girl without wanting sex or hoping for sex one day in the future. He explained that even his relationship to them was initiated on the hope that he could have sex. Turns out they all became very close friends. While F.r.i.e.n.d.s. was not a show that anybody should base standard relationships on, it was certainly the last place to look for sound philosophy. However this statement stands true for many guys out there today.

This thought that men can only invest in women for physical pleasure or advanced prestige among their peers has even bled into the church structure. We call it dating. It looks a little different in the church than it does out in the secular world, but not by much. We, as the church, have historically drawn the line at "making-out". Anything past that is undeniable sin. Some liberal groups would say that if you can make-out without lusting in your heart your doing just fine. The problem is that Christians have defined what God calls dating without ever using the Bible. When you look up in the concordance for the word, "dating"....you always close the book with disappointment as it never has advice on the issue. The Bible simply does not have advice on relationships before marriage.

I'm not a fan of "I Kissed Dating Goodbye", as it was written by a guy who was given the gift of marriage pretty early in his life. I'm glad it worked for him, but it is not a universal "formula" that cures the sickness of loneliness. It has some great truths in the book, but cannot be taken as The Way to Get a Wife.

God and I have a pretty good relationship. Some days He satisfies all my loneliness problems without a fight and other days my emotions war against my faith. The battle for "present contentment" in someone who is called to marry is a hard battle. Many of the battle scars and unattended wounds will carry into the future marriage and quite possibly scar some people on the way. The way the church has taught dating thus far has been vague and lax.

I say all that in order to wonder "out loud"....what is dating anyway? The world says it's sparks and fireworks. It's trying to find the magic kiss that awakens the sleeping beauty and turns the ugly frog into a valiant prince. It's the search for the one person who brings perpetual bliss and unyielding passion. It's the voyage to the utopia of relationships. The Church has historically agreed....at least they have never argued against it. The world and the Church have disagreed on how to obtain those things within a relationship, but have never disagreed that total happiness is what it is all about.

The Apostle Paul calls marriage "The Great Mystery". We find that the Bible outlines marriage as a paradox of selfless service. The husband is to submit his life to serving his wife and she is to submit her life to serving her husband. Marriage is quite the dichotomy when adjacent to Dating. Dating has been all about finding my needs...and hoping that my needs being filled work well with what I have to offer her.

What if Joey was not correct in his assumption. What if men could in fact treat women as a sister rather than a brother. My good friend Michael Luna and I were brainstorming on this thing called dating. He eventually tossed his palms into the air and said, "I just don't know! I guess you should just learn how to love them as sisters. Learn how to serve them in that way first." In his desperation of giving up, he may have hit a key point!

What if we treated women as sisters? They might take it wrong at first...because most men take Joey's philosophy. What if we learned how to serve them without the intention of anything more than a great friendship? What if we actually practiced for marriage by serving, rather than consuming? I'm not pretending that this is the Universal Formula....there are plenty of guys who could take this idea and really mess it up. This has the potential to destroy a girl's ability to trust in men. The only way to do this and it benefit everyone is to have an extremely strict accountability. Maybe this is one reason God designed us for community.

This is the longest post in the world....so I'm going to stop here and pick it back up later in life. :)

"God, help me understand how to serve my sisters in ways that honor them rather than objectify them. Do I fear You enough to understand You when You speak? Help me Father...I am completely lost in how to approach this."

Loving People Who Hate People

I was at work yesterday and a lady came to to sit with me as I took incoming calls. She was a tenured representative and she really knows her stuff. I had sat with her a few times in the past few months and each time I left the situation wondering how someone could be so cynical. She was a little harsh on me as a new employee but much worse about the clients.

She will sit back and poke fun at their hardship situations, assuring me that some day I won't care about them either. She will make malicious comments about the customer's account balance, race, age, sex, and anything else that might get brought to her attention. I'm having a really hard time showing love and grace to this person. Honestly I don't like her at all. However, I know that God desires all to come to Him(I Timothy 2:4)...which means that God loves this lady. The creator of the infinite universe and the taste of apple pie...He loves her.

I think about Saul before he became Paul. I would imagine that if I lived during the time of his tyranny towards Christians that I would have trouble loving him as well. Then I think about how God called him to do so many great things. Reading Paul's story, you can't help but love him. I guess I need to "read" the lady's story at work. Maybe she is just in the Saul stage of life.

I'm going to start praying for her. I'm going to start finding new ways to live missionally towards her.

Invisible Children and Invisible Thoughts

I've heard about Invisible Children before. The Documentary has been around for a while now, and in the circle of people I hang around, it's hard not to hear about it.

When I heard about what was going on in Uganda, I was shocked! I hated that kids were getting abducted and I was glad there was somebody working on getting the problem out to the world.

It's been a few years now since I've heard about that war. Life continued on.

This morning I watched the documentary for the 1st time. I can't tell you how many things really merit a 'note' all for themselves. There are tons of things to talk about from the film. The film evokes questions, emotions, passions, and actions!

I hear these kids talk about fear that I've never experienced. I don't cry often...I may have an emotional inability to cry in death situations and severe break up situations. As the film fades I find my self wiping more tears away than I've cried in the last 10 years.

The tears were for a two main reasons. (1)These are kids...who aren't kids at all. They are people horrifically bullied by other people who were once in the same dark, wet, hiding place shivering, for fear that they would be abducted. (2) If I turn around...away from my computer screen to scan my room....I may forget. And in this moment, that thought is unbearable.

Then, in the documentary, a young boy fades in. He asks the camera man, "Do you think if you go there that you will not forget about us?" The boy wouldn't look up into the camera man's eyes for more than a moment. As if it weren't him who was invisible...as if it weren't the thousands of children sleeping in hiding places that were invisible...as if it weren't those who had already been abducted and brainwashed that were invisible...but as if the help promised was invisible.

How do we keep from forgetting? How do we war against invisible thoughts that lead to no action?