by Pastor Douglas Brauner

Running to God, Not Away from Him

You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking on this SoundCloud link.

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever!”
Psalm 111:10 English Standard Version

I’m writing a short story in my retirement. It is a requirement of someone who is recently retired to write such a story.

Writing this story is an exercise in embellishment. One such story that I take a little bit of license with was my fear of the dark. The distance between my friend Dave’s house and mine was probably only fifty feet, yet at night it felt like a mile. Having closed their front door, I sprinted as fast as I could to my house. I was sure that something was going to grab me and suck out my brains, or at least, pickle them.

When we read words from the Bible that tell us that we are to fear the Lord, we might hear those words as a command to flee God as if he were some kind of monster who wanted to suck out our brains. Yet fearing God has nothing to do with running away from him, in fact, it means the opposite.

To fear God is to run into his arms because he alone has the power to deal with the real monsters of our lives. He alone has already dealt with the monsters of sin, death, and the devil. His Son faced these monsters for us when he was suspended between heaven and earth on his cross. There was no place for him to run, no place that he could hide from the wrath of his Father against our sin.

He won. You are forgiven. You are free. Fearing the Lord is holding on to him with awesome reverence for who he is and what he has done for you. It is not a call to be afraid of him, but to worship him with everything you have.

Copyright Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado