Did I fear the Lord? Of course I did; what a stupid question for me to ask...but I asked it, and I was still asking it, and for some reason, I suspected that I didn't fear Him for the right reasons. Where or how this question came to me I don't remember, but it was lingering and ominous. I kept telling myself, "Of course, I did. Everyone fears God. Who wouldn't?" and yet...and yet...

I began listing the reasons, going from ordinary frustrations to things far more serious: I fear God because for all the understanding His Holy Book is supposed to bring, all it does is leave me with questions. For all its order, I receive disorder; for all its peace, I feel endangered; for all its purpose, I feel unsteady; and for all the free will, I am a puppet. I fear God because He is not my friend or my father. He is my boss. But most of all, I fear God because I don't know if He is powerful because He is right or if He is right because He is powerful. This fear has risen numerous times, usually when discussing some atrocity committed by our loving Father, things making all the sense to Him and none to me. Drowning the world. Massacring cities. Slaughtering firstborns. Enslaving populations. Raging eternal fire. I slowly realized that I don't fear God because of my actions; I fear Him because of His.

Perhaps I was being too American in my views, letting my natural distrust of monarchs run my spirituality wild, thinking absurdly that my 'vote' could anyhow affect the way God runs His country. Anyone with a basic concept of Christianity understands that God is king, whether you like it or not...and maybe that was the problem. Every time I sought to defend God to another person, as it was often easier to explain it to them than to myself, I would always have a last thought of, "What could we do about it anyway?" It was a disturbing feeling, but it roared through me anyhow, straddling my heart and dragging it down. What's the point of fighting it, I thought. What's the point in arguing about it? God does what He wants. I can't stop Him and neither can you. The best thing is to just stay out of His way. I felt minuscule and unimportant. I wondered again if i'd spent too much time under a Western viewpoint; if I'd been born in a nation governed by a king or queen it might have been easier for me to grasp the concept of an omnipotent ruler with the power to decimate cities with no one to hold Him back.

It scared me. He scared me. Everyone always wants to draw the line on something God would never do; He would never want anyone to kill gays in a mass shooting, He would never want slave owners to believe slavery was a divine right, He would never permit his church to crusade and slaughter any man, woman and child who did not claim Him as their Lord, a whole number of things, and I would dismiss those who said otherwise as hateful bigots, murderers, crazies looking for any excuse to exact their sickness upon the world. But that burning pit of eternal torment, the 40 days and nights of rain, the angel of death sweeping across Egypt, the whole cities drenched in the blood of families and animals--all with God's permission--they all lingered at the back of my mind. I was not wholly convinced that the seemingly crazy woman who heard God tell her to slit another person's throat was lying.

I was fully aware that this was not God's entire personality. God sent His only son to be crucified for our sins as much as drowned the entire world. It was like the flip of coin, compassion on one, wrath on the other, both with a half a chance to fall into my hand. But the same principle could be applied to anyone couldn't it? How many stories have we heard about a person having been victimized by the one they trusted the most? Yet it was God's coin that earned my fear because as true as it is that God's wrath is not the same as human wrath, I could never quite tell if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Human kings, whatever their character, grow old; they die; they step down, but there is no end to God's reign. God, the TRUE monarch. Their was no jail for God, no trial for God. He has no peers and no judge. There is no law. There is no ANYTHING in the government of God save God. Was that my real fear? My real concern? That whatever I decided to do there was no safety net? There is no one else to save me, to help me, protect me...only Him.

And that's as scary as it is good. Yes, unlike a human king, God cannot die. God will never be too busy. God will never leave. He will always be perfect and well. For a person who is never comfortable putting all my confidence in one person or belief yet always wanting consistency and trust, this is quite an enigma.

I am a sinner in the hands of an angry God, dangling from His fingers holding me above a roaring pit. And I am a sinner in the hands of a loving God, nestled in the warmth of his palm holding me to His chest, listening to the sound of His heart. A heart that beats for me. It's a bittersweet reality, one the human mind and heart, including my own, will have to learn to adjust to. But a person doesn't have to be torn apart by it. Just never forget. We must fear our Lord.