ASLC Devotions -- Tuesday

Proverbs 9:10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,
   and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.

We all know in a secular, regular educational context that the most important step in learning something is to recognize that you need to learn it. Those who "know it all" will never learn. The most widely-acknowledged brilliant people in human history are all united in one thing: they recognized profoundly how much they did not understand. It's a common maxim that the more I know the more I know that I do not know.

The same is true of our relationship with God and our understandings of the divine and of our relationship to God. Proverbs puts it that "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." That common biblical phrase "fear of the Lord" gets a bad rap in our day because we think of fear as hiding under the table cowering. That's not at all what we're talking about here. In this case, what the writer of Proverbs is saying is that the beginning of wisdom, the first step to understanding the world more deeply comes when you recognize that God is God and you're not. There is a difference between you and God. It's obvious, but we all need reminders.

In Christ,
Pastor Seth


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