The Beginning of Wisdom

Scripture — Psalm 111:10 (NRSV)

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom;
all those who practice it have a good understanding.
His praise endures forever.

Devotion

When I was a freshman in college, I decided I needed to read a “serious” Christian book. I had heard people in the Christian fellowship talk with excitement about a recently published volume called Knowing God by J.I. Packer. So I walked down to the Logos Bookstore in Harvard Square in search of this book. I found Knowing God easily since the store had quite a few on display. Purchasing the book, I hurried back to the library to begin digging into it. (Fun side note: The Logos Bookstore in Harvard Square was managed by a knowledgeable man whose young son often helped out in the store. That young son turns out to be Matthew Dickerson, a professor and author who often writes for Life for Leaders. Such a small world!)

As I read Knowing God, I knew I was supposed to think it was wonderful. To be sure, certain parts were quite inspiring and informative. Yet other parts I found troubling. They challenged my sense of what it meant to be a faithful Christian. In Chapter 10, for example, J.I. Packer asks, “Where can we find wisdom? What steps must a person take to lay hold of this gift?” (p. 113). His first answer is this:

1. We must learn to reverence God. “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom” (Ps 111:10; Prov 9:10; compare Job 28:28; Prov 1:7; 15:33). Not till we have become humble and teachable, standing in awe of God’s holiness and sovereignty . . . , acknowledging our own littleness, distrusting our own thoughts and willing to have our minds turned upside down, can divine wisdom become ours.

I was okay with reverence for God. But I had never been comfortable talking about “the fear of the Lord.” That felt wrong to me. Also, I was good with “humble and teachable” but not so happy with “distrusting our own thoughts and willing to have our minds turned upside down.”

A lot has happened in my life in the 49 years since I first read Knowing God. For one thing, I had the amazing opportunity to teach with J.I. Packer at Laity Lodge. (See photo.) For another, I’ve come to recognize the value of “distrusting our own thoughts” and being “willing to have our minds turned upside down.” I now see how often this is an essential part of growing in wisdom and how this follows from reverence for God. When I recognize God’s awesome power, limitless knowledge, and incomparable wisdom, I am encouraged to recognize my own limits and errors as I seek true wisdom from God.

I’m also more comfortable with the phrase “the fear of the Lord,” though I don’t know if “comfortable” is the right word to use here. Part of the point of the fear of the Lord is to be uncomfortable. Yet the fear of the Lord is not meant to drive us away from God, but rather to draw us to God, yet on our knees in awe and humility.

Today, I connect the fear of the Lord with something I didn’t know when I was a young man in the Logos Bookstore at Harvard Square. It wasn’t until my family and I moved to Texas in 2007 that, for the first time, I experienced truly gigantic thunderstorms. These things rarely happened where I had lived in Southern California and Massachusetts. But they happen often in the Hill Country of Texas.

There were many nights when a huge storm would blow through our area, with thunder so loud we couldn’t sleep. Sometimes we’d get up and sit on our back patio, listening to the booming thunder while watching bright flashes of lightning illuminate the sky. Occasionally a bolt of lightning would strike very near us, reminding us of the danger we were observing from the safety of our covered porch.

During my time in Texas, did I have “the fear of the storm”? Oh yes, for sure. I knew to stay away from where lightning might strike me. And sometimes I even found the tumult of the thunder unsettling. It could be so loud! Yet, my fear of thunderstorms didn’t drive me away from them. I didn’t hide in a closet and plug my ears. Rather, the fearsome power of the storm drew me to the storm, I wanted to marvel at the lightning and be shaken by the thunder. I loved to hear the cacophonous pounding of the rain when it poured, even louder when it hailed. So, yes, I had the fear of the storm, which caused me to act wisely and also drew me to the storm itself.

God is rather like those Texas thunderstorms: awesome, powerful, sometimes scary, yet also mysterious and magnetic. Our reverent fear of the Lord draws us in God’s direction while at the same time showing us that we need to act with wisdom around God—wisdom which, indeed, God supplies. According to Scripture, wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord. We will become wise when we come before God reverent, humbled, awestruck, and submitted, eager to draw near to One who could wipe us out in a moment, but who chooses rather to draw us into an eternal embrace.

Find all Life for Leaders devotions here. Explore what the Bible has to say about work at the High Calling archive, hosted by the unique website of our partners, the Theology of Work Project. Reflection on today’s Life for Leaders theme can be found here: Why Is It Good to Fear God?.

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