“Hallelujah! Happy is the man who fears the Lord, taking great delight in His commandments. … He will not fear bad news; his heart is confident, trusting in the Lord.” (Psalm 112:1,7 CSB)
When is fear not fear? When it is directed toward the Lord. To fear the Lord is to not fear something else.
Two senses of fear are expressed in Psalm 112. The fear of the Lord, which is called “the beginning of wisdom,” in Psalm 111, is a deeply chilling and reverential awe of God, the kind that gives you “goose bumps” when you think of it. It is the overwhelming feeling of reverence that comes from being in the awesome presence of the Holy and Almighty One.
The second sense of fear is the emotional response that comes from the threat of personal loss, or the threat of injury or hurt or even death. This is a God-given emotion that is designed to keep us alive. It is our survival mode. It is not a bad thing, but in excess it can become a stumbling block.
As believers, our priority must be the first kind of awe. Fear of the Lord, in the sense of reverence, is to supersede fear of anything else. The psalmist says that the man who fears the Lord as his first priority does not fear bad news. Bad news does come, sooner or later, but the man who fears God has a heart that is confident in God and trusts God regardless, so that he does not allow the bad news to create fearfulness that works contrary to his walk of faith in the Lord. There is no denial here. Bad news is still bad news. But the sense of the awesomeness of God is to be brought to bear on every aspect of life, even on that which is described as bad news. The perspective of the awesome is to take priority over the perspective of survival.
Father, Today may our reverence toward You and Your awesomeness overcome any other fears that may tend to overwhelm us, so that we can glorify You. Amen.
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