Knowing God beyond the fear
By Jessica Brodie
When my mom first adopted Peaches, it was love at first sight. Peaches is a sweet, loving, affectionate dog, always ready for a belly scratch or a face-lick. She adores Mom, all kids everywhere (the more playful and rambunctious, the better!), every dog she’s ever met, and pretty much every person… except for men. Men she fears, especially big, tall men.
At the sight of a man approaching, Peaches will cower in terror. Her tail, as if on autopilot, tucks tight between her legs, her head ducks low, and she sidesteps away, like she’s expecting a beating.
It took months for my stepdad and my husband to earn her trust, and she still instinctively pulls back when she sees them, though she’ll quickly sniff and amble back over, like she’s saying, “Sorry, guys. I forgot for a sec that you were the ‘OK ones.’”
We don’t know much about Peaches’s early history, but she clearly had some bad experience with a man, an experience that still haunts her.
Sadly, that’s how some people feel about God. We hear the term “be a God-fearing Christian,” and we know it’s supposed to be a positive, for the sort of fear used in this phrase isn’t the negative terror-oriented fear, rooted in fright about potential punishment, but rather the affirming, “good” fear that represents respect, reverence, and deep adoration.
But some of us truly do fear God in the negative sense, cower in terror like Peaches when she sees a man, often running as fast as we can in the opposite direction.
Maybe we were raised to think God was a nasty, intolerant tyrant, just waiting for us to slip up so He can penalize us with a plague or other calamity.
Maybe we had a rotten encounter with churchgoers who were mean, judgmental, or exclusionary and thought these people represented God.
Maybe something bad happened—a tornado, terrible abuse, the horrific or tragic death of a loved one—and assumed God caused that bad event, and we still blame God today.
But that’s not who God is. And if we were to take the time to read the Bible, get to know God, and truly try to understand God’s nature, we would see this truth. Scripture shows us God is a good Father, filled with love for us, and we can trust His promises.
He didn’t have to love us. He could have just created us and let things happen from there. Instead, God sought us out. He spoke to us throughout history.
God called to Noah and told Him how to stay alive in the flood. He made a covenant with Abraham and his descendants. He led Moses and the Israelites out of Egyptian slavery and into the Promised Land. Again and again God gave second, third, even hundredth chances to a people who doubted, sinned, lied, and went astray. And finally, He offered the gift of Himself, Word become flesh, born as a human and crucified as a man, to show us “the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6 NIV) and establish a new covenant with us, ensuring eternal life for everyone who believes, no matter their past sin.
For as we’re reminded in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”
The truth is that fearing God means both bowing in awe before the One who created the world and all things in it, and hunching down on trembling knees at the prospect that He could, if He so chose, destroy us all in a moment. After all, He’s the God who created the universe and flooded the earth; He certainly can do this if He wishes.
But that’s not who God is. God loves us. As Jesus said in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Peaches used to fear men. But slowly, she’s getting to know good men, men who are helping her understand trust and relationship. She’s learning to fear in the positive sense of the word—reverence, respect—not fear from a place of punishment or terror. She knows these men now as people, not in the abstract. Not for what they represent.
Just like Peaches, people can let go of a negative, abstract fear of God. Through real relationship with God—through prayer, time reading the Bible, time basking in God’s creation, loving and accountable relationships with authentic Christians, worship, and many other ways—we can get to know Him not in the abstract, not as a representation. We can know God for God… God the person, in the form of Jesus. We can know God as Lord, God as Father, God as Holy Spirit.
For when you come to know God and choose to be part of His team, you’re in! You’re part of the family.
Now and forever.