Fearing the Lord and Gaining Wisdom
“The [reverent] fear of the Lord [that is, worshiping Him and regarding Him as truly awesome] is the beginning and the preeminent part of knowledge [its starting point and its essence]; But arrogant fools despise [skillful and godly] wisdom and instruction and self-discipline.” (Proverbs 1:7, AMP)
What does it mean to be completely devoted to someone or something?
Even marriages have the “honeymoon phase,” where the couple is totally enamored with each other. Everything is new, and precious, and exhilarating. There’s something similar when you become new parents– “the bubble” as it’s now affectionately called. Where you bring that child home and they are so agreeable, so cute, so new and wonderful, that the world just feels novel and sweet.
But even the most delightful of honeymoon phases tempers into something more mature. All bubbles burst; they aren’t made to last forever. And sometimes, we get so used to that person or thing that we begin to take it for granted. We become desensitized to that new, special feeling.
So is it any surprise that our reverence for the Lord grows dull sometimes?
Try as we might, we tend to get caught up in our routines, goals, and day-to-day tasks. We lose that wide-eyed wonder we have, even for the most important things in our lives. As a Christian, we forget just how blown away we should be by the Lord– how He is our Savior, Creator, Lover, Friend, Father.
In the very opening of Proverbs, we are met with the most fundamental, and at times, most difficult truth to our faith: That the fear of the Lord is the beginning of truth.
We often need reminding at how important that should be to us. So, let’s ask two questions that help reintroduce us to this statement: What does it mean to fear the Lord, and what is the beginning of truth?
The Hebrew word here for “fear” is yir’ah, which means a deep reverence or awe. We are to love the Lord as a creature loves their creator. That’s not a love on equal footing; in this dynamic there is a clear superior and a clear submission to the superior party. Yes, we are to love God in full submission to Him. And that yielding, awed, submissive love is to be the posture in which we deal with everything.
For some, that might be a hard pill to swallow– that we are not equal to God. We don’t know what He knows. We can’t do what He does. We cannot save as He saves. So many people believe that our relationship with God is somehow symbiotic or that His act of redemption is to put us on par with Him. This is not the case.
Our relationship with God is much more akin to Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh. The 100 Acre Wood is a place imagined by Christopher Robin, and the adventures he goes on with Pooh and company are created in his mind. Without Christopher Robin, Pooh is one-dimensional– a stuffed animal on a shelf. What brings Pooh to life is Christopher Robin. On the other hand, Pooh loves Christopher Robin with all his heart. Many times, what drives the story is Pooh looking for the boy, or looking forward to the adventures they’ll share. It’s affectionate love, loyalty, and a comfort to Pooh to be with Christopher Robin.
I’m sure you can see where that analogy is going: God is Christopher Robin– the creator, the one who brings a whole place and group of people to life– and we are Winnie the Pooh– the creation that loves our Creator and cannot wait to be around Him again. A reverent affection, a loyal love, and a joyous worship for Him until we can be in communion again. That’s what it means to fear the Lord. Not to be in actual fear of Him, to dread His Word or His Holy Spirit. To fear the Lord is to truly understand the depths of His wonderfulness and is characterized by our heart to worship Him with our lives.
Which brings us to our next question: What is the beginning of knowledge? For Solomon, who was noted for his God-given wisdom, to state this at the start of His book of wisdom, is more than just a nice introduction. In the opening statements of Proverbs, Solomon establishes that the Book of Proverbs is more than just an info-dump or an instructive exercise. He specifically sets out to teach, instruct, and give understanding to all that read it from the young and inexperienced, to the older, wiser, more mature theologian.
“The beginning of knowledge” is not a starting point. It’s not square one on the journey to becoming Biblically wise. It’s not a place we leave or distance ourselves from as we learn more and spiritually mature. Rather, it’s the beginning in the sense that it is a controlling principle through all stages of wisdom. You never depart from it.
The fear of the Lord is not something we graduate from. It’s not something we grow beyond. There is never a point in the Christian walk where we become too knowledgable to center on it or feel it. Instead, the fear and reverence of the Lord is our baseline. It’s the place from which we keep advancing from. Our faith grows from being planted in it. Our wisdom compounds while being anchored to it. That reverent awe of the Lord is our chief and fundamental foundation.
True knowledge and wisdom flow through a fear of the Creator and Savior. Anyone who claims they are wise and all-knowing without a healthy fear of the Lord is puffed up and their knowledge is empty. That fear drives us to be in awe of Him, and that awe creates a love for God that cannot be manufactured some other way.
True, Godly wisdom is from a humble, reverent posture before the Lord. To seek His wisdom is to be on one's knees before Him, worshiping and beholding Him.
