July 27th, 2020: The Fear of The Lord

 What Does the Fear of the Lord Mean? - Life, Hope & Truth

Yesterday I used this verse from Psalm 112 to end my note:

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;
    all who follow his precepts have good understanding.
    To him belongs eternal praise."

As we pay attention to what is happening around the world today, it is not that hard to realize that wisdom is missing. So what does it means to say that "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom"?

Fear in acknowledging that only God knows everything. He knows what is spoken and unspoken. God knows our thoughts, our longing, and desire. He knows something about us that we don't even know ourselves. In God there is no secret in our dealing with life, and that is both freeing and scary at the same time.

Fear in acknowledging that we are in great need of mercy. We only know what we know,  and because of that, we make a mistake due to our limitations. We make many mistakes in life. We make some of them intentionally, and we make some others unintentionally because we don't know any better. We live with our personal self-contradictions.

Fear in acknowledging that we know what good is and yet still pursuing evil. It is not about the lack of knowledge anymore. It is about us wanting to have the final say about our life. This fear has to do with not trusting God and losing the freedom to have intimacy with Him.

What happens to knowledge in the age of information? What happens to wisdom while pursuing knowledge? Applying info brings about knowledge. Wisdom is based on the discernment of knowledge.

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