Fear but don't be Afraid

Fear, but don’t be afraid, sounds crazy right? In the Bible we are told to “fear the Lord”, yet angels often say “don’t be afraid”. Fear of the Lord is a complicated kind of fear. It does not mean that God wants us to run from Him screaming our heads off - that would be pointless. On the other hand fear of the Lord isn’t just respect, it’s more than that. I was thinking to myself “what then is fear of the Lord, if it isn’t actual fear and it’s not just a sense of respect, then what is it?” Well I think I figured it out. Imagine you’re at the zoo near the lion exhibit, and it’s your job to feed the lion. You walk up shaking a bit, afraid that if you make one wrong move then you’re a goner, but at the same time you admire the lion for what it is. That is fear of the Lord. We must walk up to God, love Him, (we are called to have a personal relationship with Him), but we must remember who He is. When I was in Mississippi I got a great picture of God. We were doing our devotions on the beach and there was this amazing sunset to the west all the colors, pink, orange, purple, blue it was amazing; but to the east there was this huge thunderstorm several miles away we saw huge bolts of lightning flashing between the clouds (it was actually pretty cool to watch). God is like that, the same God that made the sunset made the storm. We are to love Him have a personal relationship, Jesus even called him “abba” which is the equivalent of “daddy”, but we are to revere Him before all other things and show ultimate respect before Him. As C.S. Lewis wrote of Jesus, “safe, of course He isn’t safe, but He is good.”