The Mountain, The Ocean, and The Storm

We were made in the image of God, we share His attributes and are able to learn more about God and ourselves the more we learn about these attributes. Self exploration, in my opinion, is very valuable and even vital to our relationship with God, but I don't think it is the only exploration we need.

While doing my daily devotions on fear I realized that I didn't know what the fear of the Lord meant. I was pretty sure that it wasn't spending every moment cowering in fear, because that would be an unproductive use of our time that we could be serving God. However, the other day I ran a crossed a phrase that really helped me understand this ambiguous term "fear of the Lord". Worshipful fear it is in Psalm 2:11 in the Amplified Version.

This is when it clicked it is the same idea as the feeling climbers have towards the mountain, surfers have for the ocean, and storm chasers have for the storm. Ask any climber if they love the mountain and they will without a moments hesitation they will say yes. Now as ask them if they fear the mountain and they will reply yes just as quickly. It is this idea that even though they love and respect the mountain they also know that it isn't a thing to be trifled with and death is a real possibility. This is the same for the surfer and the storm chaser as well.

There are stories all the time of people who flippantly engage with the mountain, the ocean and the storm and they end up injured or worse. We even hear stories of people who are prepare and understand what can happen who suffer these fates. The same is true of God when he is disrespected or disobeyed. However, with God there is grace and mercy and we love for it.

From what I can tell there is not one word that can describe this idea and the closest phrase I think I can get is "worshipful fear". This is how I now understand "Fear of the Lord". I may grow into a different understand at some point, but for now this is my understanding of it. God is to be loved and respected, but He isn't something to be trifled with.