I’ve heard it said, mostly by people who worship the god of thought and knowledge, that:

“Nothing truly known can be truly feared”

I have no idea who said this first. But if you think about it, it’s accurate. A violent dictator, if you knew the troubled, insecure child inside, you would not fear him. A large guard dog, if you knew his name and that he loved bacon, wouldn’t pose much of a threat. Or how about the future, if you really knew what was going to happen tomorrow, you would not be afraid of it—you would know just what to do.

But there is one important exception.

God.

It is only when we truly know God that we truly fear him.

We know that the fear of the Lord is the ‘beginning of wisdom’. But what it looks like to fear the Lord can seem a bit ambiguous sometimes. Solomon clears it up.

Proverbs 8:13:

The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil,
Pride and arrogance and the way of evil.

Seems pretty cut and dry to me. Now, if I can only stop getting in the way of this sanctification thing…

I saw this ad today as I was doing my daily rounds reading blogs and such. It caught my eye because, frankly, the statistic wasn’t impressive to begin with, and even more so, neglects what is probably some important information.

“More than one in every ten victims knew the person who stole their identity.”

One in ten? Okay. Knew the person, how? Like, they were the teller at the bank they went to? Or they were the salesman they bought their car from? It’s really unclear. Maybe LifeLock delivers a great service. I don’t know. And I’m sure this kind of marketing will bring in some bucks. But only at the cost of decaying trust between family members and friends.

Lame. Seriously lame.

Jehoshaphat was king and Judah was facing a huge danger. The Moabites and Ammonites, along with some of the Meunites set themselves against Judah and were poised for battle. The calamity was imminent. Jehoshaphat prays for his people and concludes like this:

2 Chronicles 20:12:

“For we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.”

This is just the attitude that we ought to acquire—not only in the face of impending danger of whatever kind we may be experienced, but in virtually every circumstance of uncertainty.

“Lord, I don’t know what to do. But I know that you do, and so I will keep my eyes on you, the source, and wait for you to do what you will do.”

The past couple weeks I’ve really been dwelling on the idea of remembering Jesus—remembering the Gospel. As I read today, this passage in the beginning of Psalm 77 stuck out to me.

You hold my eyelids open;
   I am so troubled that I cannot speak.
I consider the days of old,
   the years long ago.
I said, "Let me remember my song in the night;
   let me meditate in my heart."
   Then my spirit made a diligent search:
”Will the Lord spurn forever,
   and never again be favorable?
Has his steadfast love forever ceased?
   Are his promises at an end for all time?
Has God forgotten to be gracious?
    Has he in anger shut up his compassion?"
                         Selah

Then I said, "I will appeal to this,
   to the years of the right hand of the Most High."

I will remember the deeds of the LORD;
   yes, I will remember your wonders of old.

Asaph describes his turmoil and mental anguish over his circumstances. Then shifts immediately. He says that he will remember God’s works and ‘wonders’ of old.

Every Christian can attest to God’s power to provide strength and comfort. Yet, we all quickly forget that he has done so for us in the past, when our present seems to fall apart. Like Asaph, we should make a careful point to remember what God has done for us in the past, in his Gospel in general and our lives in specific, to give us confidence for the future.

Someone very special shared this quote with me on Facebook a couple weeks ago and it’s been echoing in my mind ever since.

“You can be sure that God will never take from you something that is good. Rather, when you are ready, He will remove the evil (sin) and replace it with something far better. He will tear down your fortress so that He can build a palace in its place" – Erwin Lutzer

As new Christians we might see our sanctification as a loss of things we love. But over time, we learn that though they are things we love, they are also things that will inevitably try to destroy us. As older Christians, we often fear the loss of something ‘good’ only to find that it was laced with something from our heart that was ‘bad’.

With always perfect timing, God removes those things from us and we discover again that “there is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.” (Proverbs 14:12)

Thank God that He knows the right way. And that way is better than anything we could ever conceive on our own.

Psalm 4:8:

“In peace I will both lie down and sleep;
   for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.”

Matthew-Henry writes:

“It is said of the husbandman, that having cast his seed into the ground, he sleeps and riseth day and night, and the seed springs and grows he knoweth not how. Mark 4:26,27. So a good man having by faith and prayer cast his care upon God, he resteth night and day, and is very easy, leaving it to his God to perform all things for him according to his holy will.”

Jesus says:

“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?”

Anxiety and worry are an insult to rationality in the Christian’s mind; and to God in himself. Yet here many of us are, almost constantly hurling insults.