I can’t help but laugh at the almost comical difficulty I’ve had with the paperwork process necessary to secure the job I was recently offered. I’ve had difficult-to-obtain evaluations, duplicated accounts which needed explanation and clarification, overlooked faxes, forgotten reviews, and now the most recent iteration – fingers that won’t fingerprint! Yes, that’s right. I had to get fingerprinted (standard practice in education – I’ve had it done about 5 times now) and the machine wouldn’t accept the scans of my fingers! Finally after 30-odd minutes of trying to get a green light, they gave up and picked the best scans for each finger. The hope is that the ones they chose will be usable and I won’t have to go back and try again! How crazy is that?! At this point I’ve pretty much given up on making it to work for pre-planning and am praying that I make it for the first day of class. Yet He is Holy. Through all of that, He’s still in control. It seems to me that He’s still teaching me to walk in faith (as opposed to just “knowing” the right things). Ecclesiastes 12:12 The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. The word fear always makes me think of a tiny, skeletal man, cowering before a vengeful and furious (usually on fire) being. I don’t think that’s quite the image the author had in mind. Fearing God is one of those things that’s kind of “christian-ese,” like grace or faith. It gets used a lot, but not that many people really understand it. Strong’s definitions for this word include awe, reverence, honor, respect, and astonishment. That’s much broader than the terror and trembling I usually think of. It seems that often in the Christian world today, we tend to emphasize God’s love and downplay the more God-like qualities (like judgment and anger). While this might be good in the sense that it helps people to have a relationship with Him, it’s not good because God is called Almighty for a reason. He isn’t a giant teddy-bear or a wish-granting leprechaun. There’s a huge lack of respect for God today because we’ve read things into (and out of) the Bible. Part of it is the Hellenized culture, but part of it is that we’ve tried to make God “user friendly.” And while that’s all well and good, we’ve lost the awe and astonishment that precede reverence and respect. If, after searching the world and trying everything known and available to mankind, Solomon concludes that only two things matter and one of these is to fear (be in awe, astonishment, reverence, and respect) God, that makes it pretty significant! For me, that might mean being more aware of the complexity of the world He created, or it might mean really studying and discovering the qualities that God applies to Himself so I can know who He is. It might be treating Him less like a cosmic Santa Clause and more like an Almighty, awesome, incredible, overwhelming Maker-of-all-things in whom all things hold together (literally) and without whom all life would cease to exist. If you want to be amazed, read this forward I received from a friend the other day. It’s pretty cool!