Take a Stand - Are You Comfortable With God?
We are told that we should fear God. The Old Testament Hebrew word for fear is yir'âh, meaning fear or reverence. Proverbs 2:1-5 says:
My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding, and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God.
By extension, the Greek word used in the New Testament for the fear of God is phobeō, which means to frighten, be alarmed, but also to be in awe of, and to revere.
So, which is it? Are to be frightened about what God can do, or are we to show him reverence? Really, it depends on what side you are on. If you do not believe that God is real, then you may find someday that you have something very real to fear about what kind of power God has. If you are a Christian, then we show Him the reverence that He rightly deserves.
However, elsewhere in the New Testament we are called to an intimacy with Him. I Corinthians 1:9 says "God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful." The word fellowship is translated as communion or partnership. Obviously this is more than a simple "God you are so great" kind of relationship. We are to be partners with Him in our own faith. This requires us to do work on it as well. As partners, we have to be comfortable with each other as well.
How do we become comfortable with God? It's a simple answer - prayer. I've been reading The Power in Prayer by Charles H. Spurgeon and it's really turned my life on it's ear. My thought processes are changing because of how this book portrays prayer. I've long felt that the small things in life are unimportant to God in the grand scheme of things, but lately have become to step away from that thought. I've had a project that I've long tried to finish but always ran into problems with it. Today, when I sat down to it the first thing I did was say a quick prayer to God about it. Lo and behold, I zoomed through it without any problems. The sad part is that it took me a couple of hours to realize what gift God had given me. Through getting that done early, I was able to spend some more time with my kids and have a great afternoon.
Being comfortable with God is all about spending time with Him in prayer and in His word. Just like any kind of partnership, you don't truly know someone until you spend time with them. I've been at my job for nearly five years and there are still things I don't know about the people I work with. How much more do I not yet know about God? The wonder is in the journey and I feel like I'm just getting started again.