Fear
“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the defense of my life; whom shall I dread? Psalm 27:1
Fear – Yesterday yasha. Today yare. Languages are the umbrellas of thought. A single word can cover a lot of ground. Picture the yare umbrella in your mind. Under this umbrella are five different ideas, all covered by the single word that we translate “fear”. Can you think of them? Try filling in the blanks (and you thought devotionals didn’t require work).
- “I’m afraid” expresses _____________________ fear (hint: in the same category as joy and ecstasy)
- _____________________ fear is anticipation of evil without emotional content (it’s all in your mind)
- “fear of the Lord” is about awe and ____________________ (starts with “r”).
- When I go to church to wor___________, I express one meaning of this word.
- An authority figure looks for good beh_______________ as a sign of fear.
Which meaning does David have in mind? If you picked number 2, pat yourself on the back. You just learned one of the meanings of yare.
But notice the concrete aspects of yare. It can be about my real emotions (#1) or my reverence before God (#3). It involves worship (#4) and good behavior (#5). If God is my source and my freedom, all of these things fall into place. I have no reason to fear others or fear possible circumstances. And I have every reason to show respect, worship and proper living before Him. It is an umbrella word that covers my life.
Yesterday we discovered that salvation is wide open space. Now we see that this wide open space contains nothing to fear because its God’s wide open space. Isn’t that great!
David was a “God-fearer” who feared no one. Does that describe you?
(verse continued tomorrow)
