Holy Fear

Do you find the more you seek Him, the closer you come to Him, the safer you are, yet the more holy fear you have of Him? I do.

I found myself crying in my closet a few days ago. As I tried to evaluate the core of why I ended up there, this is the conclusion I came to. It wasn’t near as much about my outward circumstances...the boys being loud and disobedient, the house being messy, not getting my to-do list done, the disagreement Jerome and I had all piling up emotionally. No, it was much deeper, and it usually always is.

I am thankful that this time I went to my closet and cried out to Him, praying through it instead of sweeping it under the rug and moving on. My ‘crying in the closet’ sessions are much more messy, but produce a deeper intimacy between me and my Jesus who I love so much!

At my core I want to be pleasing to Him…in every way. Yet at my core I know that never, ever will I be pleasing to Him by any merit of my own. No matter how perfectly I parent my children or how wonderful I am as a wife. My heart is deceitfully wicked above all things. I need Him as much today as I did 13 years ago when I was as messy on the outside as I still am on the inside.

What happened the other day was me failing in my own strength. I couldn’t juggle all the plates that particular day and they came crashing down. My flesh took over and I crumbled. In my failure I ran to my closet to meet with Him, because I realize that He is a safe Refuge. But while in His Presence I also realized He is a holy God and it does no good to play games with Him. It does no good to make excuses for my fleshly reactions to the pressures of being a stay at home mom. So I found myself repenting even for my self-pity. In my sobbing frenzy of emotion, I found myself confessing and apologizing for all the ways I fall short instead of making excuses. This is because in the Presence of a Holy God, I find I have a holy fear and desperately want to be pleasing to Him. I want to be the real deal. I want my motivations to be pure. I don’t want to be motivated to do good by even a hint of selfish ambition. I want to know that it is my love for Him that compels me as much as I know it is His love for me that sustains me. I want my reward to be Him alone because He alone is who I am really serving, even when serving my husband and children.

I want to know He is pleased with me.

He did let me know this.

He did let me know through the sweetness of His spirit bringing peace as the tears stopped, through my husband’s encouragement, through Him flooding my mind with His Truth about how much He loves me and how His love covers the multitude of sin that sometimes reigns in my heart.

He is the very One Who holds my life together. As Jerome reminded the boys at dinner the other night, if God were to even stop thinking of us for a single second we would cease to exist. In Him and by Him all things are held together, including our very lives. I have a holy fear of a holy God, yet in Him I know I am safe. This causes me to fear ever been far away from Him for even a moment. I am desperate for Him, now more than ever!