Thoughts on Wisdom - Part 3 - who do you fear?

This is an interesting point that Solomon and his wise co-authors make in Chapter 9 of Proverbs.  See if this resonates at all with you.  If you are not a believer in God, this won't make much sense, but read through it and see if it helps you understand better the viewpoint of a Christ Follower.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.  
For through me (Wisdom) your days will be many, and years will be added to your life.  If you are wise, your wisdom will reward you, if you are a mocker, you alone will suffer.

This has always been an encouragement to me.  See, I am a left hander.  For those of you who don't know, the life expectancy of lefties is less that that for right handers.  The world has been set up to cater to the needs of those less fortunate, who have to use their right hands for everything.  Americans switched to the right side of the road and put the gearshift for the right hand to help you out.  Rifles and Shotguns are right handed. Scissors are made for right handers.  Butter knives, chain saws, etc.  It is only a matter of time until I have an accident, trying to make my way through this ridiculous right handed world.  However, the fact that I know that the world has been designed for right handers creates in me an awareness that helps keep me safe, hopefully, as I may take a little extra time to make sure I don't hurt myself on these right handed things of life. I could complain and refuse to accept the fact that this stuff is right handed, but no one is going to change it, and if I ignore it, I will probably have a fatal accident before too long!

I hope this analogy brings into clarity the fear of the Lord point.  See, each of us has to choose a filter by which we view the world.   We are introduced to many ways of viewing the world as children, and by the time we are teenagers we often have these filters engraved in stone in our lives.  For example, many of us grew up during a time when skin color was a basis for judgement.  We learned this as children from our parents or grandparents, and by the time we reached high school, we had some ingrained thoughts.  If you are like me, it was a lot of work to change this filter and I had to really want to.  I have to filter as a lefty to make sure I compensate for backward scissors, for example.

A person will decide whether or not they believe in God based on faith and understanding.  This decision is important because it will dictate where their center of the universe is.  If there is no God in a person's life, they are by default the center of their life.  All decisions, and all values come from themselves, and they filter all of life by these internal perspectives, which can change over time due to outside influences.

When a person believes in God, they have a new center of their universe.  Now there is a new source for filters for life, and it is presented as unchanging.  There are filters that come from the bible and from a spiritual connection to God.  This connection is presented not as a connection made from fear but from love.  So why then does Solomon use the word fear?!?!   In this context, I believe the word fear is more like a respect to the point of unquestioned obedience.   What this means is that because a person believes in God, they are open to seeing the world in a new light.  They don't have to have the answer to every question all at once, because there is a trust in the unknown that it will someday be known, and that there is more time than just to earthly death to figure it out.  There is a book called the bible which is called God's Word.  The use of the term word has always been used to describe God's connection to mankind.  Jesus was referred to as the word as well.   The creation story tells of God speaking the world into existence.

So we have words from God, we have a spiritual connection, now what?  This is the cool part of what Solomon is saying.  People who have God as the center of their universe now have the keys to wisdom and understanding.  They learn through the filters that are now in place, which may be entirely different than those they had as a child or teen.  For some people this is very difficult, as the filters of their early worldview are still around to compete.  This is why it is a journey to wisdom not a snap change.  We have to unlearn and learn constantly to keep up with the journey.

Have a great day.  I hope this makes sense to those of you who don't normally read God stuff.