Who do you fear?

For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord and He ponders all his paths. His own iniquities entrap the wicked man, and he is caught in the cords of his sin. He shall die for lack of instruction, and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray. (Proverbs 5:21-23)

I climbed the arched bars on the playground in the fifth grade almost everyday, at every recess. Each rung held a special place to everyone, but sitting on the very top was where everyone really wanted to be. You could see the whole world from there. I would find myself to the top and would sit there and think. I was new to the school, I didn’t know anyone, and it was just best to keep it that way. (I thought by talking to myself by the way.)

One day I decided that it was not enough to just sit on the top but it would be better to stand. (There were two of these bars, but one was bigger, of course I chose the big one.) There I was, at what seemed a stifling height from the chips of well-worn bark below. I started by sitting and manifested to kneel. As soon as I gained the courage I slowly crept my wobbly legs from the kneel to a stand, unsuccessfully. The next thing I felt was the thud against the hard ground and the inability to breathe. No, I am not one who is a fan of getting the wind knocked out of me. I don’t think about it, I never look forward to it, and unfortunately I can hardly ever see it coming.

I lay there struggling to breathe for the short thirty seconds that seemed like a lifetime wondering why I even got the idea to stand up in the first place. After that I never did it again. Oh sure I climbed the jungle gym every now and then, but I never stood on it for the rest of my life. And even if I wanted to I couldn’t, because they took the thing out a few years back. I wonder why?

The point of this tale is to not diminish my will to “try, try, again,” But to show what fear kept me from doing. It’s funny how this one small thing in my life kept me from ever attempting it again. A six-foot jungle gym was like a gigantic elephant in the room. Even if I had the idea to try it again, I would remember the rolling on the ground, out of breath Alex who failed the first time.

It’s sad that we can make such miniscule things in our life keep us from doing simple day-to-day things, or achieving our dreams, and yet we don’t have the mindset that we should fear God. We worry that we will fail in a success, rather than what we will look like on judgment day. I don’t know about you, but I would much rather be in fear of God than a tiny playground. The fear of the Lord is a guard in life that can not be taken lightly but must be applied daily. Ironically to fear God is to build yourself even stronger. “In the fear of the Lord there is strong confidence, And his children have a place of refuge. The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life to turn one away from the snares of death.” (Proverbs 14:26-27.)

Too many times we fear man, and not God. We fear being caught by man in our carnal nature, doing something wrong, but don’t even realize that God is there with us, even when our family or friends aren’t. We do everything in our power to hide from men, yet don’t acknowledge that God sees all things. (Proverbs 15:3) Why do we fear man and not God? Because man is visible. We must desire the fear of the Lord. We inherit the fear of man.

Keeping the Simple simple

There is no doubt that life is the type of thing that will always surprise you. Just when you think you have the solution to a problem, for instance the enigma of losing the remote, the answer come flying at you, whizzing past your head and brain activity, causing you to therefore see the unexpected. The remote is in your hand. It was not under the couch, or in the couch, or in the pantry, or in the trash, although I am sure that these incidents have occurred. No. The answer to life’s puzzles, which go beyond the simple quest to find the “zapper” are often right in front of us. It’s to bad we search to hard when life, in reality, is simple.

To be honest, if we lived in reality the world as we know it would not exist. Our little “dream” that we pattern to is not even a touch of what is real. Reality is simply defined by God, and by the Word of God, which is God. (John 1:1) Reality is God. If we lived in reality we would not need to give to the widow and the orphan, because the widow and the orphan would not exist. Sin would not either. Who knows where we would be. But since the fall of man we have turned everything to a helter-sketler, Picasso like scope. The God view now seems twisted and upside down. The dysfunction is functional and the functional is dysfunction, putting the validity of God at the bottom of all thought; A scary place to be no doubt, yet as it was said before answers are simply simple.

Interestingly enough simplicity has now found itself in everything. Spiritually perhaps, but even in the visible world it has taken over: Designs for clothes, rooms, homes, colors, ads, products, labels, magazines and so on. Don’t tell me you have not noticed. People want something clean and to the point, with no funny business and doctored speeches. This comes to everything including the church and what God is speaking. What I love about this is that God never really complicated things. He never beat around the bush. He spoke plain and simple, and if people were dumb enough to catch his drift than it was, in my opinion sad. Jesus himself was simple. He was who he was and he brought it to the table, which consequently is God’s table.

It’s funny how we use that expression with such vain attitudes. “How do you feel about Rodger?” “Oh, well he is fine, you know he brings a lot to the table.” It makes no sense. First of all this table would have to be huge, and second of all it would not matter if he did bring anything to the table. (But I really don’t know where I was going with that.)

What I love about the Word is that it does not try and prove the existence of God, but it just simply declares it. There is no scientific chart to map out any sort of random timeline of God. He was just there. It was as simple as that.

Since God is so simple he makes it simple for us. We don’t really take the time to think how simple it is due to our inept way of complicating everything, despite our hunger for the “simple life.” God asks for us to rely on him in all seasons. The command not difficult, it in bold letters, sometimes red, and yet we find it so hard to truly rely on him. A moment comes and goes, things go from good to bad, from bad to worse, and you find yourself in a pit of sin because you fill the void with all the carnal desires known to man, when in reality the remote was with you the whole time. It was not where you thought it would be. We must be dependent on God. Independence only comes from the dependence on God. Without it we over complicate creation itself.