Monday, April 14, 2008

fear-of-the-what? II

To continue the conversation a bit farther on the fear-of-the-lord Peterson notes that none of the available synonyms in the English language- awe, reverence, worshipful respect - seem quite adequate. They miss the punch delivered by "fear-of-the-lord" Ok, so what do we do from here? Well he gives us some ideas of how to cultivate the fear-of-the-lord. AND ISN'T THAT WHAT WE REALLY WANT MORE THAN BEING ABLE TO UNDERSTAND OR EXPLAIN IT?!!
"The primary way we cultivate it is in prayer and worship - personal prayer and corporate worship. We deliberately interrupt our preoccupation with ourselves and attend to God, place ourselves intentionally in sacred space, in sacred time, in the holy presence - and wait. We become silent and still in order to listen and respond to what is Other than us. Once we get the hang of this we find that this can occur any place and any time. But prayer and worship provide the base"
Peterson says, "Fear-of-the-lord" is the best term we have to point to this way of life we cultivate as Christians." Basically, A world has been opened up to us by revelation in which we find ourselves walking on holy ground and living in sacred time. The moment we realize this, we feel shy, cautious. We slow down, we look around, ears and eyes alert for what God is saying or doing. The moment we find ourselves unexpectedly in the presence of the sacred, our first response is to stop in silence. We do nothing. We say nothing. We fear to trespass inadvertently; we are afraid of saying something inappropriate. Plunged into mystery we become still, we fall silent, all our senses alert. This is the fear-of-the-Lord.

Or we don't...

More later.

1 comment:

Beka said...

i like the holy ground/shy/cautiousness thoughts...I have a guess there is joy/awe somewhere in there too...despite the term "fear"