Sometime ago I was flying from London to Mumbai. At 39000 feet above the seas and the land mass that I have been for a short while calling 'home', the clouds came together , hiding it from my view. I knew for well that in less than the 20 days I should be back again in my cosy room in the tiny town of Essex. I was quite teary eyed - not for long - just few tears drop fell off my cheeks. I was not sad but there is always a longing for the people and the love of home that I find wanting me to let go of my hold on it , doing this was emotional.
As the flight embarked the upward journey, the clouds that seemed like nomads showed a very life like perspective to them. There, like jellyfish, the blob of white and radiant clouds broke off at edges like tentacles and tried it's best to hold onto the pieces that were falling apart. I must confess that all this seemed too dramatic and exciting for my normal day life and I was pleasantly amused .
I was drawn to Psalms 19 where the heavens are said to declare the glory of God. How much more apt it would be to read this song at a height like this when all my nature have not seen this level of height with a Bible.
In Psalms 19 verse 7, it says "fear of the Lord is clean (ESV)".
The Hebrew word is so deep that it means anything between pure as in spring water and Godliness . We know of fear being a bad thing but this is much different. This kind of fear is pure and unadulterated something that deserves praise and adoration.
I have been listening to Perelandra by C. S Lewis and in it Lewis puts this issue forward about his issue in meeting a pure being.
" As long as what you are afraid of is something evil, you may still hope that the good may come to your rescue. But suppose you struggle through to the good and find that it is also dreadful? How if food itself turns out to be the very thing you can’t eat and home the very place you can’t live, and your very comforter is the person who makes you uncomfortable. Then, indeed, there is no rescue possible: the last card has been played."
Lewis acknowledges that we not only fear evil but also good. You see we are not really as afraid of evil as we are afraid of absolute goodness.
But how can good be dreadful ? Isn't it because we are not the greatest supporters of either side we struggle with both?
“It is safe to tell the pure in heart that they shall see God, for only the pure in heart want to.” C. S Lewis “The Problem of Pain” (1940)
The issue of purity and cleanliness does not lie in a physical element bit rather in the depth of human soul. While we are still depraved in our thoughts of pure joy we cannot comprehend the sanctity of fearing God. I understand now, that this fear is not merely meant for chastity of heart or holiness in conduct but rather a gift from God to base our dependence on him.
I would imagine this kind of fear to be of the superlative kind that a first time mother holds the newborn she just delivered. In the book Out of the Silent Planet, Ransom (the protagonist) says that it is not the idea that seems vague to describe the beauty but rather it is that our language fails us to put our thoughts into words that give equal weight of matter.
Our fear then is more valuable to sustain us than to destroy us.
How do we face this situation ?
Well, here is a lesson from recent events in my life. I was always scared to telling everything about me to one person. It meant that I would be easy to be preyed upon. Having fallen in love with this person and then having asked them to marry me, makes her a very important person in my life. Then there was the fear. Would she take advantage of my openness? I don't think she will. However, being vulnerable is never a state in which we are comfortable at. So, I decided to hide my fears and brave the situation. This caused our relationship to feel quite bumpy. The key issue was to love. If I realised how much my fiance loves me, and I love her back with all that I am, then she taking advantage of my openness is no longer an issue, but rather a point in which she is comfortable at.
Let me explain with this illustration. Imagine a fence locked up a precious lake, and one day it was opened to one person. Although you feared that anyone looking at the lake as impure in the past, when this one person, jumps right into this lake and becomes immersed in it, doesn't the lake get a bigger significance?
So, in the same manner, let our understanding of the love of God, challenge us to jump like a hippo right into the lake and be immersed in it. Its scary for us, but its worth it all.
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