Work and Worship

Fear and Trembling

What makes you Tremble?

When are you speechless, in awe of God? Are you ever so overwhelmed with him that your only response is to tremble? His holiness, his story, and the sheer knowledge of the one true God is so magnificent that to be aware of him is to fear him. God’s power is far beyond our comprehension and yet so intimate and precious that we get to experience his grace daily–our hearts and minds can barely fathom it. This awe-filled fear in the presence of God is a form of worship. Ed Welch calls it worship-fear.

“Fear of the Lord means reverent submission that leads to obedience, and it is interchangeable with ‘worship’, ‘rely on’, ‘trust’ and ‘hope in.’ Like terror, it includes a knowledge of our sinfulness and God’s moral purity, and it includes a clear-eyed knowledge of God’s justice and anger against sin. But this worship-fear also knows God’s great forgiveness, mercy, and love. It knows that because of God’s eternal plan, Jesus humbled himself by dying on a cross to redeem his enemies from slavery and death. It knows that, in our relationship with God, he always says, ‘I love you’ first. This knowledge draws us closer to God rather than causing us to flee. It causes us to submit gladly to his lordship and delight in obedience. This kind of robust fear is the pinnacle of our response to God.” —Edward Welch, When People Are Big and God is Small

My heart tends to slip into a different kind of fear: forgetful-fear. I forget God is with me and my heart lets go of this precious knowledge to trust God’s goodness and nearness. Like a meter in my heart, my worship-fear decreases when forgetfulness-fear increases.

What do you fear?

I fear wind. Enormous evergreen trees surround our home and a powerful windstorm can start them swaying and dropping branches. Once, one of these towering trees fell across our front yard.

Far from peaceful, the wind gusts stir up fear in my heart. Some winters when windstorms are more frequent, I have allowed the fear of the wind and trees to control my heart, not trusting God to protect me, my family or our home.

Fear can be irrational. Fear takes over my thoughts. Fear can be all-consuming. Often fear turns into prolonged anxiety and worry when not submitted prayerfully to my attentive God in faith.

I know what peace feels like; I feel peaceful on calm days, when the wind isn’t blowing. Worship-fear would mean finding my peace in him—experiencing calm and rest, trusting in his power over the wind and trees—even on a stormy day. Instead, my heart vacillates between forgetful- fear and worship-fear.

The last couple seasons, my fear of the wind has decreased as fear of the Lord has increased! I have bathed in psalms that talk about God being our fortress, refuge, safety, rock and stronghold. As God surrounds me with his fatherly care, concern, lordship, and strength, I am starting to get it.

There is no formula for replacing one fear for the right fear. Yet, in God’s grace, he has calmed my fears as I have placed more trust in God’s power, protection, specific love for me, his kindness, and his mercy. I have to fight for this trust and fear. I have to tune my heart to the music of Psalms like this and believe what they say!

“God is my refuge and strength an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea “ (Psalm 46:1).

Hide from the wind, or hide in God?

When I fix my attention on the wind, forgetful-fear is stirred in my heart, and that makes me want to hide. When I fix my attention on God, worship-fear moves me to hide in him. It is a fight of faith to fix our attention on God when fears assail us (1 Tim. 6:12), a fight to find our rest in him.

Recently, a windstorm hit us. I saw the wind picking up in the early afternoon. There were power outages all around, a giant tree split in half, resting on trees near our vehicles, and wind so loud you could hear the branches splitting with each big gust. Jesus worked on me.

Surprisingly, I felt peace. Instead of embracing anxiety, I went to Psalm 121 and read it out loud to my kids and prayed silently that I would trust God and have peace in my heart. Then, I took a nap.

Now that, my friends, is redemption. That nap was an expression of worship-fear, hiding in God. It snuck up on me as I fixed my attention on him.

Sisters, are you fighting for fear of the Lord? Are you fighting to remember God is who he says he is? Does your fear of _______ push out your fear of him? Ask him to show you how you tend to fill in the blank and how he wants to fill you with his peace instead.