There’s an aspect of dualism that we must employ in today’s article. I know many believers do not understand the fear of the Lord, as it is expected for those who might still be new to the faith. The word ‘yirah’ is Hebrew from which the English rendition is obtained.
Yirah however also means awe, worship, revere. The fear of the Lord must not be the kind that makes us dread Him. Rather it is that against which we must live, more like the law. No one wishes to be against the law – which could lead to imprisonment forexample. This is the fear that influenced Joseph’s fleeing from Potiphar’s wife.
I would like to use the perspective of an artist to portray that this fear, or awe, is not only skyward, but earthward too – allegorically. Before I make any masterpiece, I spend hours conceptualizing, thinking, sketching, meditating, praying … for I know I’m making something whose value will increase to infinity the longer it lives.
When I finished painting (and making) this family tree – that includes varnishing – I felt something was still missing, but I had to heed to my co-artist – God – to ascertain this. No wonder He too said “Let US make men from(in) our own image.” He consulted the rest of the blessed trinity.
I do not know if it’s the perfection syndrome or worm that sometimes makes artists feel they haven’t done enough, so they feel something is wanting. On the other extreme, there’s a time where the masterpiece is as the vision you had of it – perfect; having the only fear as the danger of adding something that the artist hadn’t envisioned to be part. The war between the two sides, if the artist isn’t strong in will, will find himself conquered by the former, and after that, they’ll be devasted when they see that they added something that was not meant to exist.
This fear, God confessed having too. This is when He says He made you FEARFULLY. Oft, when I behold a piece long after it’s been completed, and I receive impression that something lacketh, I add it. That is rare. Regardless, the client might not receive their piece unless I have gone ‘through these motions’ – and have overcome them. (Allow me use that statement, not to mean to do something in an uninteresting way – but take the meaning literally) In the same way, God did not let you leave Heaven until He had gone ‘through those motions’. David said how great, O, the sum of God’s thoughts towards Him. That they are more in number, than the grains of sand on the seashore.
Today, that revelation came to me and this is how the maths integrated: I could spend all my life counting those grains, continue after death – still counting, spend the a thousand years still counting, and perhaps when ‘forever’ begins, I’d have counted half the grains of the seashore! Imagine this mentality as He sculpted. A thousand thoughts just about your eyes, and a thousand about your hair, and a thousand about each muscle and bone, and after all those – I don’t know how many – for 1000 years are a day, and if you were with Him for about His year, that equates to 365000 years, just concentrating on your appearance; That is – minus the thoughts concerning your purposes.
After that was settled, He then embarked on another 365000 years of thoughts; thinking of what you’d be, not what you would look like (that is out the equation); or perhaps this comes before the appearance. ‘Let’s make a garden, then make the man.’ As the man went about, God’s thoughts ran to and fro, after noticing man being lonely. ‘Let’s make Eve. Come, now how will she look like?’
He began sketching, ideating … But remember Eve is part of the thousands of thoughts concerning Adam. Eve also has her own portion of God thinking about her multiple facets. But can you comprehend it: that one thought about you Adam (which was a spouse) has sent God onto another 365000 years (making Eve)! But that’s just one thought of you. And in that thought, there are other thoughts (How will Eve’s hair look like? How unique will one hair be from another? Her nails. . .?)
O can you comprehend the subsets and billions of thoughts about you!
Yes, He made you; then He went on to think of your friends (and each has their tones of thoughts) and how you’ll think that sad day and how He’ll weave a web of thoughts to come and lighten you up either by thinking about how a good friend’s journey will intersect with yours – taking you out, or ensuring you read the other Bible verse and the other and the other, so that these replay that day when the blues swirl.
He is infinite I tell you!
Now, it would be a mockery – an insult, witchcraft, ungratefulness, tyranny, evil – to take all those millennia that God spent working on you, and daresay ‘you are imperfect.’ ‘Who told you you were imperfect?’ I see the authority by which He asks the man who told him he was naked, for He expected no one else to define things like perfection and beauty to Adam; for He reserves the copyright for that. Both because He made, and that He is the absolute definer.
This is the fear we must mirror back. The awe of how many of His years He spent on you must be sufficient to convince you that you are enough!
To recount one more time, once you understand that you must fear God, the degree with which you fear Him will be the same with which you’ll understand His fear for you: The fear of letting you go incomplete. The fear of letting you roam half baked: like Ephraim in Hosea. He looked back and was awed at what He created of you; and like I said to that masterpiece, like God said to man, He looked and said, “This is indeed good.” And if the artist – if the potter – has released you from the workshop; not even you have the right to say anything less than what He has said of you: a workmanship created in Christ Jesus; marvelous – body and soul! He was too careful – ‘afraid’ – to tamper with what was perfectly complete to Him. Why should you then change your skin color! Why should you change your nose! Have you no fear of the thousands of years God spent on you! (Selah)
Suffer me to tackle the WONDERFULLY too.
Isaiah said that unto us a son is given, and a child is born. He would be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Jesus is one with God, and on many accounts, we’ve been told by Paul that we are seated in Christ; and are one with God. Even if I do not use that direction of explanation, God said, “Let us make man in our very image.” It’s clear to me that a name of a person is part of a man’s image. ‘Bill Gates’ is an image that paints a wealthy setting in your mind. In the same way, whether before or after people had witnessed God’s power to call Him ‘Wonderful’, it is an image He already bore when He made you!
So if He created you out of the image called ‘Wonder’, that means you are made of wonder; and that you comprise of it. That means you too are wonder-full! Wonder-filled. This wonder oozes out through rivers of living waters. Part of the rivers from your belly are called ‘wonder’, or are not made of water, but wonder. And as men sip and drink, they drink wonder. The wonder of God in you! No wonder the psalmist testified that he’s a wonder to many men. I can’t define for you what wonder is to you. But I’ll define more about what His image is;
He being an Everlasting father, means He has set eternity in your heart. There’s components of everlasting inventions and ideas within you. That same power that spurred planets and galaxies into being, that component is within you. It consists of counsel, and counsel is as deep waters in you, only a man of understanding can draw it out. O that you might comprehend that understanding that comes by the fear of the Lords!
His other name is Counselor. Like Daniel, you too bear counsel to Belshazzar, to Nebuchadnezzar. Like Joseph you interpret for Pharaoh – by default. Only disclaimer is, only those that know their God shall be strong and do great exploits as fishing out this bottomless counsel. What’s keeping you from mining the counsel and ‘eternity’, is more knowing of Him.
His other image is ‘Mighty God’, ‘Prince of Peace’. Might is within you – to do great exploits. It’s like this was the raw material needed to bake you. And peace – embedded within your tissues too. In Him all things consist. If from that image you came, or if you indeed are in Him too, thou bear the liberty to swim unto all these things. If Jesus is a house, and you’re in Him, that means you have access to the fur nature and rooms within; not forgetting the drawers holding treasures of the secret place! No wonder Apostle Paul said “all things are yours!”
You are a wonder my friend! I hope you see it! You are a Wonder!
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Isaiah 8:13 The LORD of hosts, Him you shall hallow; Let Him be your fear, And let Him be your dread.
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