The Wisdom of Fear
“The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.” – Proverbs 9:10
When we imagine the feeling of fear, we do not think of it in a positive light. The Webster’s Dictionary has its first entry for defining fear as “an unpleasant often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger.” In considering that definition, fear is not an emotion that most healthy people would have a desire to experience. And it certainly doesn’t sound like the best emotion to build a long- term relationship with anyone, especially a relationship with God. In this essay, we will examine the concept of fear in relationship to God and discover not only the wisdom of fear but the ultimate beauty in the initiation of that divine relationship with a loving Father.
The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. The key word in this proposition is “beginning.” One of the main building blocks in the foundation of any relationship is respect. Respect is a necessity for an enduring, meaningful, and rock-solid relationship. Respect combines with Trust and Honesty in creating an unbreakable triangular bond of relationship. Once any of these three attributes is lost in a relationship, all other emotions eventually follow, leading to a state of indifference, which is the very real death of a relationship. One aspect that drives fear is ignorance – not knowing or understanding someone or something: whether we don’t know someone or something, or someone or something doesn’t know us. The knowledge and understanding of each other is only obtained through open communication based on mutual respect, trust and honesty.
God knows and understands us - each one of us as unique individual beings. According to the Holy Scriptures, God created the whole universe that we know, in order to glorify Himself and to establish a relationship with His ultimate creation - a being made in His own image. God creates each human being (all of us as His children) in order to establish a personal fellowship with each one of us. He uniquely created each of us to reflect the diversity and infinity of His beauty, grace and creativity.
In Psalm 139: 13–16, David captures the mystery and wonder of the very personal involvement that God takes in creating every one of His children:
For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praiseyou, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them.
God handcrafts each of his children, deliberately and painstakingly, with His own delicate touch, forming the body, soul and spirit of each precious child, each one bearing the image of the Creator Himself. God knows the beginning and the end of the life of each one of us. He loves each one of us, delighting in our uniqueness and our potential for relationship and life everlasting with Him. Jesus, the Son of God, God Incarnate, went so far as to state unequivocally that God not only accounts for each one of us as His precious child, but that God Himself has “even the hairs of your head each numbered.” (Luke 12:7).
Talk about a God of details!
The author of many of the Proverbs was Solomon, son of King David and Bathsheba. Solomon is considered not only the richest person who ever lived but also the wisest. It is Solomon who was inspired to write the words “The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.” The man who was blessed by God with the most wealth and intelligence of any fully human who ever lived is clear on the first step toward wisdom: the fear of God.
The key to understanding where Solomon was coming from with this pronouncement is his first opportunity to appeal to God. After succeeding his father David as King of Israel, Solomon has a dream. In the dream, God appears to Solomon and God says to Solomon, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.” (1 Kings 3:5). Solomon responds to God: “So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong.” (1 Kings 3:9)
Solomon was young and afraid in succeeding his father David as king. He knew he was not ready and equipped to take on such a role, ruling the people of Israel. In Solomon’s first opportunity to engage with God, he deferred to God out of fear and reverence for God. And because Solomon respected God, trusted in God, and was honest with God, God greatly rewarded him. How so? By blessing Solomon as follows: “I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be.” (1 Kings 3:12)
God was pleased with Solomon’s request. And since Solomon did not ask for power, wealth, long life, dominance over his enemies, but rather for discernment in administering justice, God granted Solomon not only what he asked but all these other things as well.
In Matthew 7:7-11, Jesus teaches us how we are to view God as our Father:
Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Of if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are imperfect, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him!
Jesus compares an earthly father’s desire to provide for his children with our heavenly Father’s desire to provide for His children, with some key distinctions: God is perfect in His willingness to bless us with good things, and unlimited in His resources.
What are we to make of this portrait of God being presented? David describes how God knits each of one of us together in the womb, how fearfully and wonderfully made we are, and how He numbers our days. Solomon writes that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom and that a wise and discerning heart is the most precious of all we could ask from God. Jesus presents the person of God in a human example of a father providing for his children, and that our heavenly Father yearns to bless His children abundantly and joyfully.
It all comes down to the concept of fear: we fear what we do not know; we fear what we do not understand. It is only the wise and discerning heart that can know and understand.
Based on the very personable insights from David and Solomon, whereas the initiation of our engagement with God is referred to with fear and trembling, it is Jesus who makes clear in His own words, that it is not God’s intention or desire that we remain in a state of fear. Hence, Jesus’s invitation to ask of God, to seek from God, to knock on God’s door in order for God to provide our heart’s desire. Ultimately, Jesus describes a heavenly Father who delights in giving to His children.
Who is God? What do we know of God? How do we arrive at a place where we can respect, trust and be honest with Him, if we believe that these attributes are the very firm foundation of a true and loving relationship?
It is the Beloved Apostle John, who aptly describes who God is: “God is love.” (1 John 4:8). Alright, God is love. Definitely a positive start. But what does that mean, precisely? What is love, then, becomes the question. And for that answer we look to the Apostle Paul:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now, we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13: 4 – 13)
By substituting “God” for “love” in the above verses, we arrive at the very character and nature of who God is: God is patient. God is kind. God does not envy. God does not boast. God is not proud. God does not dishonor others, God is not self-seeking, God is not easily angered, God keeps no record of wrongs. God does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. God always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. God never fails.
It is interesting to note only God (and Jesus and the Holy Spirit) can be substituted for “love” in the above passage and have all the statements be true. No other name, no other person, nor entity can be substituted or defined in such a manner and consistently and constantly live up to the standards so established.
Paul writes in the above passage that all predictions, that all talking, that all knowledge – these will all pass away. Even what we view and consider and affirm in the here and now is only an incomplete picture: that there will be a point in time – eternity itself – where the picture will be completed and that which is only a part will be made whole - our reconciliation with He who is Love, when we will achieve completeness in His presence. And it is in that eternal presence that we will experience the fullness of God’s love.
Solomon wrote that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” That’s the beginning – but what is the end result of wisdom? Knowing and understanding that we have a heavenly Father who loves us unconditionally, in such a way that we come to the full actualization of wisdom: we had nothing to fear at all - for God is Love, and Love knows no fear.
