This has been on my heart for a while. I am learning a lot about the fear of God. I am being asked questions and questions about it and with the previous activities of a certain “prediction” by some guy out there, you can see how my time was spent last week leading to Saturday May 21, 2011. I can recall being asked multiple times about this prediction of the end of the world. I got asked by all sorts of people, but if I am being quite honest, I got asked mainly by people who do not live like there is a Christ, or that He is real. These are my thoughts on the whole situation.
Through being asked about last Saturday, every conversation ended with my good friends something like this: “I guess if it were true, you would want to be sure to fix some things in your life huh?” To that question I would get a simple reply, “Yes, I would want to”. So why will you not? Why are you not? Why is it okay if the world is not ending to live with the things you admittedly would want to change? This is just one thought on my mind.
Quickly my mind starts racing. If you know me at all you understand why I started racing through these thoughts. Why is it that when there is a prediction of the end of the world people start asking questions about it and God? I came to the conclusion, because deep down, those people know it is true or that at the very least, it could be. I am not saying they know the end of the world is, I am saying that those people know that there is a good chance that God being real is true. You may disagree and that is fine, you probably were not the one that called me, but for those who did, this is my plea, please hear me out. For the ones that called me, or texted me and asked me the simple question “is the world going to end Saturday?” I would ask this question, What if the world did end last Saturday? Where do you think you would be? I am not about fire and brimstone in my personal ministry, but I am about asking questions to get you thinking. What if the world did end last Saturday?
This is the origin of where my thoughts and learning about the fear of God are being sparked. I have been trying to understand the fear of God in a real way. I have been trying to understand how it works, to truly fear God. For a long time I looked at it like a reverence, or respect. I look at the Bible, and listen to great speakers like Francis Chan to sort of clarify this idea of the fear of God a little further and I find that the fear of God is actually fear. I used to play this game with my dad. He would go into the dark house and hide and I would try to find him. Every time I would be so scared. What if it is that type of fear? What if when the world is predicted to end and for a brief minute, people inquired about the ending of the world because for a brief moment in their world, if they are being honest, there was at least a small sense of fear that if the world ended today, they would not be where they hoped they would be?
Francis Chan said this: “I do not care who you are, when you come face to face with God, you will fear him.” I completely agree.
I personally find it interesting that on the week there was a prediction the world would end that people who have not thought about God in a while started to ask questions about it. Why are we not that curious when there is no prediction? Why are we not concerned with how we live when there is not a prediction? The Bible says that Jesus will return like a thief in the night. This basically means that no one will know when He is coming back but that we should be living with our eyes to the sky and our hearts in tune with His. So, at the end of this probably way too long post I ask this simple question. If you were one of the people who asked the question to anyone, “Is the world going to end Saturday?” What if it did?
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Food for thought: what if the same fear that some of us had when we found the world was going to end, is the same fear that we should have when talking about God? What if the same fear of not having our life in line, is the same fear we should have when there is no prediction?
leadershape 