The Reverence We Have Lost

Something has quietly gone missing from a great deal of modern faith, and we have hardly noticed the loss because what replaced it feels so warm. We have made God approachable, which is gloriously true, but somewhere along the way we made Him small. We speak of Him as a mate, a helper, a life-coach who exists to smooth our path. And in gaining a God we are comfortable with, we have lost a God we tremble before. We have kept the friendship and mislaid the fear.

Scripture will not let us keep only the half we prefer. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding" (Proverbs 9:10). Not the middle of wisdom, or an optional advanced module for the especially devout. The beginning. Miss this, and everything built afterward stands on sand.

But we flinch at the word fear, so let us be clear about what it is and is not. This is not the cringing terror of a slave before a cruel master, and it is not incompatible with love, the same Bible that commands us to fear God commands us to run to Him as a Father. The fear of the Lord is the awe of a creature before the Creator; the trembling reverence of the small before the infinitely great; the settled, weighty sense that God is holy, that He is not like us, and that He is not to be trifled with. It is what you feel standing at the foot of a mountain that could crush you, except this Mountain loves you and calls you by name.

Insight: Familiarity without reverence breeds a god we can manage. But a God we can manage cannot save us, cannot awe us, and cannot change us. Only the God who is genuinely holy is genuinely worth worshipping.

See what happens whenever a person in Scripture actually sees God. Isaiah, a good and godly prophet, catches a glimpse of the Lord high and lifted up, and does not exclaim how blessed he feels. He cries, "Woe is me, for I am undone!... For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts" (Isaiah 6:5). Job, after all his questions, meets God and says, "I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself, and repent" (Job 42:5-6). John, the disciple who had leaned on Jesus' chest, sees the risen Christ in glory and "fell at His feet as dead" (Revelation 1:17). These were not faithless people. They were people who saw clearly, and clear sight of a holy God always produces holy fear.

And here is the wonder we too quickly rush past: in every one of those encounters, the same holy God who overwhelmed them then lifted them up. To Isaiah: a coal to cleanse his lips. To John: a hand on the shoulder and the words, "Do not be afraid." The fear of the Lord does not push you away from God. It prepares you to receive Him rightly. Reverence is the doorway through which real intimacy comes, not the wall that keeps it out.

Why does this matter for an ordinary week? Because the fear of the Lord is intensely practical. "The fear of the Lord is to hate evil" (Proverbs 8:13), it is what keeps you honest when dishonesty would be easy and no one would know. It is what makes you tremble at sin you once toyed with. It is what steadies you when the crowd is doing wrong and you must stand alone. Joseph fled temptation not because of who might catch him, but because of a God he feared and loved: "How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?" The fear of the Lord is the invisible fence around a holy life.

So let us recover what we have lost, not by trading away the nearness of God, but by adding back the weight of Him. Come close, yes; He bids you come close. But when you come, take off your shoes. The ground is holy. The God who calls you friend is still the God the seraphim cannot stop calling Holy, holy, holy. Hold both, and you will have begun to be wise.

Holy Father, forgive me for making You small and myself the centre. Restore to me the fear of the Lord, the awe that hates evil, treasures Your holiness, and trembles at Your Word. Draw me close, but never let me grow casual with Your greatness. In Jesus' name, Amen.