Skip to main content

Fear Of Man

             Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe. (Proverbs 29:25)

Rabbit trail of the day:  does “fear of man” refer to man’s fears in general or specifically to man’s fear of man? Given the context, I’m inclined to think it’s the latter, but I don’t know that it really changes the overall idea. But, back to the real issue.

I grew up in a real home, that include real people with their own real problems. I’m not going to say it was dysfunctional because the level of dysfunction was low. There are other families that are far worse off. But my family wasn’t perfect and there were some expectations that were hard (they may have been mine alone.) When I went to school and later to work, I faced other difficult people. Narcissism has always existed. It’s just in vogue right now.)

But while my experience is minor in compared to what others face, I have seen the truth of the first part of the verse. In fact, I’ll take it a step further. Whatever you fear controls you. For decades, I was controlled by a fear of spiders. In fact, it got in the way of my gardening. Over the last couple of years, by God’s grace, that fear has gone away.

 Of course, it’s reasonable to fear the guy who is coming at you with a knife. That sort of snare only lasts as long as the real danger lasts. But when the fear is an ongoing sense that unless I please this person my life will be ruined, it is most assuredly a snare. In other words, there is a sort of battle or competition going on when I feel fear of people. If I win, I lose. If they win, I lose.

Some would say that fear of the Lord is the same, but that’s not what I’ve found. When I fear the Lord, even if it feels like losing at the time, ultimately, I win. And the reality is that  God doesn’t play the competitive game. He gets no thrill out of it. His joy doesn’t come from squashing others. It’s in fearing Him that we can step out of the game and the snare.

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Way, The Truth, and The Life

              Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me . (John 14:6)           If “I am the gate of the sheep…I am the good shepherd” from chapter 10 is a double whammy, this verse is a triple whammy. And its first victim is the notion that any other so-called god was acceptable or the same as Jesus. He, and He alone is the way, the truth, and the life, and the only way to get to the Father. There is no other Savior, or Redeemer, according to Jesus. Now, to be fair, other religions will claim that their religion or god(s) are the only way. That is the nature of gods and of religions. If this and that are equally good and agree on what’s necessary, then this and that are the same thing, so there’s no need to from the other to one. If that’s the case, then why speak against the other or promote the one? There’s a song I’ve been listening to i...
Post a Comment
Read more