God is Here - Steve Case

I've been reading 'God is Here' and thought I would share a bit I was reading this morning with you all:

"God does not expect us to fear Him in the sense we use the word. God may expect you to be in awe, but "awe" is not fear, thought they come from the same word and are both used in the Scriptures. To be in awe of God is not to fear Him. In the Connection of the Soul, we are told to recognise that God is God and you are not. That isn't fear either.

Perhaps the fear He's looking for is the kind you feel while playing hide and seek. When my children were young, perhaps five and six, I would pretend to be asleep on the couch, and when they could come close, I would jump up and scream and then wrestle them to the ground. It became a game. They would inch up closer and closer, knowing that I would jump up but still creeping closer all the time. That was a different kind of fear. That was fear born of love.

But if a father demands fear in order to get love, that's dysfunction. That's abuse. God is not like that."

My dad and I used to play like this too. I know exactly the feeling he's talking about and I love the picture of us creeping closer and closer to God, knowing he's going to do something big and terrifying - but good at the same time..

..so we keep creeping.