The fear of the Lord

There is a fine-hearted older gentleman in our parish, who has had a passion for evangelization for the entire dozen years I've known him. He abhors the expression "the fear of the Lord." "Fear keeps people away from God," he says. "People must know they have nothing to fear from God, for God is love."

On the one hand he is right. On the other, as Saint Hilary observes, fear of the Lord is not, exactly, fear. In fact, I suspect that fear of the Lord has no more in common with worldly fear than God's love has in common with worldly love.

There are many things we fear, and those fears lead us to behave (or misbehave!) in a variety of ways. We fear being hurt, not experiencing all we want out of life, not being in control, being alone, being unlovable. We avoid what we fear, or get angry because of it. We cower, or lash out. Sometimes we act in ways that fulfill our fear. Ultimately, fight or flight are the only responses to worldly fear. In choosing one or the other, we often make choices that ultimately are not good for us, including decisions that hurt those around us. Fear may be at the root of every unhealthy decision every person has ever made. Abusers of substances, position, people, and power all must learn, in the process of recovery, what part fear has played in their unconscious motivations. Often they learn that fear has been their constant, unrecognized companion. I will never forget the evening, nearly a decade ago, when I learned that I had lived in fear for as long as I could remember, without being aware of it.

Fear is not a completely negative thing. Certainly it is an important element of our instincts for self-preservation. Yet even when we deal with our fear in a healthy way, when we face its sources head on, we are fighting against it in some way.

The point is that the things we fear always motivate us to act, in one way or another. This is about all that ordinary fear has in common with the fear of the Lord. When our love and desire for God become greater than the other fears that we may experience in life, then we begin to know the fear of the Lord. It is what directs our hearts rightly when the influences around us would guide us wrongly. It is the outpouring of divine Wisdom, which quietly tells us that we can trust in God to care for us, even when the evidence would scream that the only way out is clearly contrary to his revealed desire.

It reminds us that, when wrong seems the only answer, indeed, when it seems the undeniable longing of our heart, choosing right will invariably serve us better, in ways we may not foresee.

It allows us to survive the darkest places on our path, where we can see neither our own feet nor the road beneath them, because we know there is an unfailing Light that will keep us from stumbling as long as we follow him.