Where is the fear of God?

I recently participated in a small group discussion on the place of prayer in the life of the individual and in corporate worship. The intent of the conversation was to discuss the purpose of prayer, the ways in which people pray, and any other aspect of prayer that surfaced out. As discussion carried on among the group of church-traditional folk, one of the women in the group made a comment that struck meaning in with me. She commented that she longed to hear a fear-filled prayer. While not in a critically negative or in a necessarily vex way, she commented that people no longer pray “in a way that sends a reverent chill down her spine.” She continued, asking where the fear of the LORD has gone. It appears that, in many contexts, the seeker-friendly movement of the church has led corporate worship to be done in a way that tends to fear the worshipper more than it tends to expressively fear God. It appears that the Teacher of Ecclesiastes may have something to say to our overly seeker-friendly mindsets as he speaks of having a certain reverent attitude before God.

In chapter five of Ecclesiastes, the author writes that a worshipper ought to guard one’s steps when entering the house of God. His writing follows that listening in silence and being slow to speak in the presence of God is better than offering sacrifice and being rash with words before God—for many words may lead to the sin of unfulfilled vows and empty promises to God; and this is something that God does not find pleasure in. It is better, then, for the worshipper not to carry on before the LORD as if living out an unreliable dream of vanity; rather, the worshipper is heeded to simply “fear God” (5:7).

The author’s attitude is that of reverence before the ineffable. When he enters into worship, he is not comfortable before the Almighty. He does not enter into worship without first thinking about the sacredness of simply being able to go before the heavenly One who ought to be completely unapproachable by humans, who are on earth, in the first place. This One whom will be worshipped is the only truly holy being. God is regarded by the Teacher as worthy of the kind of worship that acknowledges his oneness and exclusive existence—God is unlike any other. God, by God’s nature, ought to be enough to place awe, wonder, and reverential fear into the bones of the worshipper. Yet, it appears that far too often the worshipper is quick to speak and hesitant to prepare one’s heart for the worship of God.

With the revelation of God in Christ, Christians understand God to be approachable and relational. Certainly God making his dwelling among us in a way that is palpable to us is something to find comfort in; however, there is still something about the eminence and transcendence of God that ought to make us a bit uncomfortable. The worshipper ought to revere God for the very reason that one finds comfort in God. There should be something out of the ordinary about God’s making himself known in Christ that sends a chill down the spine of the reverent worshipper.

The seeker-friendly movement, while it has a positive aspect to it, tends to neglect the fear of God and replaces it with the fear of making a seeking worshipper uncomfortable. I must agree with my friend, however, that such an extreme shift in paradigm misses out on genuine worship that responds to the experience and calling of God in such a way that leaves the worshipper speechless, unable to utter a word before the indescribable. While we understand that Christ has become a friend to his disciples, this does not mean that Christ is to be treated simply as we would treat any other friend. We ought to be discomforted when God chooses to make his dwelling among us. The holy presence of God ought to find the worshipper uncomfortably sinful before it finds that one is comforted because of the undeserved mercy and grace of this God. Perhaps, if the church of this generation became more aware of the otherness of God, my friend would find that prayer that she so desires—one that speaks volumes without saying much at all; still, it is the choiceness of those few words that expresses the fear of God in the one who prays. This is the kind of prayer, I might say, that simply acknowledges God in a way that gives him praise where praise is due and worships him before ever acknowledging wants or needs of one’s own. I suppose that this is the kind of prayer that might send “a reverent chill down her spine.”