Is God a Bully?

“The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him,” says Psalm 147:11. We are to fear the Lord. And I do.

Still, somehow, this doesn’t seem right. Why would a good and loving God want us to fear him? Is he some kind of bully?

Intellectually, I have an answer. Fear is a form of worship. We make ourselves tiny before the things we fear, lowering and limiting ourselves until we are smaller than whatever the small thing is that rules us. The reason to turn our fear toward God is precisely because he is not a bully. If we acknowledge that we are humble and small before the infinite God, then that still leaves plenty of room for us to be great—to be fully the ones he created us to be.

But recently I discovered something more—another answer to the question of why to fear, a response that went beyond the intellectual. I discovered, in my heart, a full and genuine feeling of fear toward God. I find I don’t just have an argument anymore, I have an emotion.

Why?

I sat with this feeling and studied it. I sat with God over this fear toward God. And I found: This particular fear is not a fear like anxiety, not a fear like dread, and certainly not a fear like panic.

It is fear instead that flows from awe. The fear is a consequence, maybe an inescapable consequence, of being filled with the Spirit of God. The Spirit pushes closer to the skin as my resistance is slowly overcome, and I find that I am fed much less by my own attainment and effort. I find that much more of who I understand myself to be is built upon the loving enormity of that which is infinite, eternal, ultimate, and deeply personal all at once.

I have acknowledged Jesus for about three years. I have seen redemption over that time—an elegant reengineering of my heart and life in ways I never could have planned or chosen. I have also seen the reality of prayer—God faithfully showing answers to those things I trustingly bring before him, providing a tangible response to prayer far more often than he is silent.

God accompanies us. I need him. I always did need him, but now I know it.

And even now—particularly now—I feel fearful as I come before him. There is still a part of me that fears not honoring him or praying to him in a fitting way. I do fear God—I fear him indeed. I fear how lost and small I would be if he ever turned away.