I’m a runner. If you don’t believe me, I have the light-weight shoes, shorts, and a motivational playlist on my iPod that makes me want to run through a brick wall to
prove it. To be honest, I’m pretty good at this whole running thing. Or so I thought. Then I realized I’ve been running in the wrong direction my whole life.
Last week, I decided that I wanted to see God’s power. Easy, right? It’s everywhere. Every color, taste, smell, sight, and sound – it all comes from the overflow of God’s perfections. Each and every intricate detail radiating his goodness and kindness for us to enjoy. His power is right in front of us to be in awe over. But do you ever wonder why we tend to focus on the power in the kindness of God and not the other side of God?
You know – the one I never thought to romanticize for the first twenty-five years of my life. The one that the universe shudders to think of. The terrifying and frightening side of God. The severity in his power that if you want to go back and clearly see, can read about in Genesis 19 with Sodom and Gomorrah…
Maybe this is just me thinking out loud, but shouldn’t the thought of God’s severity dig us deeper into our faith? The fear of his severity provides us with joy and peace. We, or I, tend to overlook it more times than not. But that’s one of the beauts God has up his sleeve. Despite enjoying all of his toys and running in the opposite direction with them, he’s always there at every mile marker trying to turn me back around so I can see the light and enjoy the benefits of truly fearing him. Instead of just marveling in the creation, I can marvel the creator.
You see, I think for twenty some odd years, I’ve wanted the benefits of God without truly loving everything about him. Mainly, his severity. It’s idolatry at its finest. This in essence, has made me a coward…someone who loved their ego more than anything. I didn’t want to run in God’s story. I didn’t want to deal with the hardships or sufferings that Christ tells us we’ll inevitably endure [1 Peter 4:12-19].
God wants us to see his outpouring of kindness everywhere; however, he also wants us to look and see his severity because we have to see the severity to stay in his kindness. If we don’t fear God, how can we truly praise and be crazy about all the wonders he gives?
Look at what God told Moses back in Exodus…he describes himself in both ways…
Exodus 34:6-7
‘The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and then children’s children and children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation”
And it wasn’t just an Old Testament thing where we see God explaining this…
Check out what Jesus says in Matthew…
Matthew 10:28-30
“And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell”
So why do I keep running?
Easy. Because I want to see God’s power, just not the condemnation or pain that can come with it. I want to be safely afraid of his infinite power…
1 John 4:18 says, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears punishment has not been perfected in love”
While it’s true that perfect love cast out the fear, it’s important to remember that we won’t be perfect until Christ comes back or we die and go meet him in Heaven. So fear is always going to be there. As it should be. It’s the fear of God’s judgment that is always going to push us towards his kindness. And it’s that kindness that makes the severity completely worth knowing.
