Fear and Awe
“Divine awe has nothing to do with trepidation – by which I mean, not the tremulousness induced by joy, but the trepidation induced by wrath or chastisement or the feeling of desertion by God. On the contrary, divine awe is accompanied by a tremulous sense of jubilation arising from the prayer of fire that we offer when filled with awe. This awe is not the fear provoked by wrath or punishment, but it is inspired by wisdom, and is also described as ‘the beginning of wisdom‘ (Psalm 111:10).” (St. Gregory of Sinai)
“The fear of the Lord is thus not groveling in the face of a tyrannical ogre, but an awe in the presence of our holy, loving and merciful Creator. The “fear of the Lord” also reminds us that there is a God and we aren’t that God but answer to God as God’s servants. We are reminded of this by the prophets who pointed out the failures of God’s people, reminding them that there will be a day of reckoning in which we will have to answer to God as our Judge.” (Fr. Ted Bobosh)
“We can say that God’s lament, His tears, and His anxiety over the fate of His missing son [i.e., Adam], are all things which, in a sense, happened before He put this question to Adam. They are events in the life of God that occurred during God’s search for fallen man. With the glorious light of His countenance, God searches the house of paradise for the lost coin, which bears His sovereign image (cf. Luke 15:8), and as He does so He cries out in hope: Adam, where are you? The response God was longing to hear was this: ‘Here I am, Father, waiting for You, because I have sinned; but I know that You are still my Maker and my God.’ But what did Adam say? I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid, and so I hid myself. The woman whom You gave to be with me, she deceived me (Genesis 3:10, 12). Do you understand what Adam is saying? ‘I am no longer looking for God, but only to justify myself.’ Instead of hearkening to God, Who has called out to him, Adam has turned inward, so that God becomes a frightening, external force: I heard sound of you, and I was afraid. And what is he afraid of? He is afraid of the truth about himself, afraid that God will not accept his self-justifying explanation of what happened. And what explanation was this? That God Himself was to blame for what happened! Because that is what Adam meant when he said, ‘the woman whom You gave me, she deceived me, and thus this is all Your fault, God.’” (Archimandrite Aimilianos of Simonopetra)
“If we see ourselves in the cowardly servant who buried his one talent in the ground, we must recognize that what he did led to the very opposite of what he had hope for. He brought only further weakness and loss upon himself, losing even the one talent and being cast out into the darkness. A person who is unable to move physically for a long period of time loses muscle mass and strength, knowing only greater weakness and pain. The same is true of our life in Christ. Trying to play it safe by being spiritually stagnant never works. If we are not actively offering our gifts and abilities to the Lord, we will diminish ourselves to the point that we lose what little spiritual strength we had.” (Fr. Philip LeMasters)
“Never rely on yourself in anything.” When I attempt to control my own life and deal with my difficulties and struggles in myself, relying on myself is precisely what I am doing. I may have no confidence in my own abilities and may even try to give my life away to others for them to control. Nevertheless, if I look deep inside, I will probably find that even this is an attempt to control my own destiny, to work out my struggles under my own strength, to avoid the essential unknowing of life. When I do this, I give myself over to fear and despair rather than love.” (St. Theophan, Andrew Williams)
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