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Happiness and the Fear of the Lord

One of the things that most people find truly infuriating is when others don’t respond appropriately to them. It happens occasionally in everyone’s life. You speak to someone who’s attention is concentrated on something else and your words don’t register. Sometimes, you’ll find someone is chronically unresponsive. That typically leads to confrontation or withdrawal.

We always need to be careful to not make God in our image, but as we are made in His image, it should not surprise us that sometimes we reflect, in a limited imperfect way, things about Him. One of the stamps of God on us is our reaction to unresponsiveness. God makes it clear throughout the Bible that there are rewards associated with responding appropriately to Him and negative consequences, otherwise.

In Proverbs 28:14 we read: “Blessed (happy) is the man who always fears the LORD, but he who hardens his heart falls into trouble.” The explicit blessing here is for those who “always fear the Lord.” This raises a question about what exactly that means.

The fear of the Lord, is about God as a person, not about His judgments either during our physical life, or in eternity. It is our response to His character and attributes, things like his power, holiness, goodness, grace, mercy and love. We can find the key idea in the use of the words awe, reverence, honour and respect. We all know people who wield some power, others who seem generally good, gracious, merciful and loving. We respect them for their attributes which exceed our own.

When we think of God, though, we see all of these qualities coming together in perfection. So our proper response is described by the one English word “fear.” This is not something we demonstrate externally on Sunday mornings. True fear of the Lord permeates every aspect of our life, private as well as public, unseen as well as seen. We are repulsed by anything which would defile us in any way and make us unworthy to be in the presence of this One who loves us so much that He paid the price of our sin, Himself.

We cannot hope to even begin to be wise until we develop this attitude of heart. What foolishness it is to puff ourselves up with pride with our own strengths, qualities and accomplishments before the face of God! This is entirely antithetical to the doctrine of secular humanism, which attempts to hold God accountable to our human sense of justice, giving rise to silly questions like “How can a good God send anyone to hell?”

Lest there be any confusion, the proverb makes clear the opposite of what the fear of the Lord is. Here it is again: “Blessed (happy) is the man who always fears the LORD, but he who hardens his heart falls into trouble.” When we harden our hearts against God we choose trouble. Often that will include trouble in this life, but once we have begun to harden our hearts against God we can also harden them against pain, both the pain of those we trample and our own pain.

In our eagerness to stand alone and triumphant in the universe with no need for God, we suppress our suffering and unleash anger and hate to compensate. This only prompts behaviour which increases our guilt before God and requires an ever harder heart. The hard hearted may smile, but it will be cynical. They may laugh, but it will be with irony.

True happiness eludes them because they have missed the blessing that comes from responding appropriately to God. They have not humbled themselves before Him. They have not submitted to Him. They have not invited Him to take control of their lives. They have not asked for their sins to be blotted out at the cross so that they might receive His righteousness.

As I reflect on all of this, I conclude that just as the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge, so too, it is the beginning of happiness. True happiness springs from the spiritual circumstances of life. When we know we have been forgiven by God and reconciled to Him, we stand to be overwhelmed by His goodness, His grace, His mercy and His love. We will not shrink from His presence where His power and holiness consume all that is unworthy.

Happy people respond appropriately to God.

Ron Hughes
© November 2007