How the Good Kind of Fear Chases Out the Bad {Day 15}

There was a time when I didn’t think we could do this whole move-across-the-world-with-my-two-kids-for-a-whole-year thing. In fact, I still have moments when I’m just not sure. Because there’s a lot of scary in it. But then I remember how, and why, we’re here, why we even wanted to do it in the first place.

You see, much of my life has been dictated by the wrong kind of fear. Like the fear of being alone that convinced me I had to do stupid stuff in order to keep guys interested in me. Or the fear of barf that told me to never let my kids go to places like Chuck E. Cheese (okay, still working on that one) or on certain carnival rides. For a lot of years, I allowed the feeling called afraid to motivate the way I responded to opportunities. It was especially true when it came to things about my kids. But I missed out on living. And, even more tragically, I made my kids miss out on things of life that could have helped them grow and enjoy life more. So when we got the chance to live overseas and face the scary of all that it entails, my husband and I agreed we wanted the crazy and scary of the life God had offered more than we wanted the safe and secure of what we already had.

I believe this is the beginning of learning how to fear God.

There is a certain kind of afraid, that if we find it, and we don’t let go, will actually lead us into life rather than keep us from it. It’s called the fear of God. The Bible talks about it all over the place. In fact, Psalm 112 says,

I did a little word study on the word fear, hoping I would find that the two words means two different things. But, alas, I had no such luck. That word fear up there, it means the exact same thing in both instances. It’s the Hebrew word yare, and it means affright, be make afraid, dreadful, put in fearful reverence. So, if we put the two verses and the one meaning together, we might come up with something like this:

The person who is afraid of Almighty God will not be afraid of anything else.

And here’s where it starts to make sense. You see, I believe that if I take Almighty God for Who He is, trusting and believing that He is in fact all-powerful, all-knowing and able to do whatever He pleases, then I have no room left for the kind of fear that makes me miss out on living.

Herein lies the key to life unafraid.

So what does it look like to fear God the Lord? How do we live with this kind of afraid? What do you think? What does it look like to live unafraid and in the fear of the LORD at the same time? Let’s chat about it here in the comments. Or maybe through email. Just click on the next to the title or send me a note where it says, Let me know you were here.*This month, I’m joining a bunch of other bloggers in a challenge to write for 31 days on a topic about change. Having struggled with fear (sometimes paralyzing) for a lot of my life and missing much of the living that I know God wants for me, I am on a mission to live unafraid for 31 days straight. And challenging you to join me. And I’m writing about it. You can catch up here if you’ve missed any of the days. Bring a friend, too. It’ll make it more fun. Oh, and here’s a button for you to grab if you have a blog and would like to share the unafraid life (which, btw, I would love).

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