One of the more elusive phrases in the word of God are the words “the fear of the Lord”. For years, I never understood what they meant. People I speak to still think it means being afraid of God. It’s phrases like this that make me wonder why the word fear was used and what exactly is the fear of God? I have never had an adequate way to answer this when someone asked me, then this morning the phrase showed up in my reading of Proverbs 15:32-33 when it said, “Whoever ignores instruction despises himself, but he who listens to reproof gains intelligence. The fear of the LORD is instruction in wisdom, and humility comes before honor.” These two verses opened up like a treasure chest to me this morning.

The Lord showed me a target with various rings and had me write different words for each ring from the outside in. Outer ring is humanity, next ring is humility, then listening, then wisdom, and the inner circle is the fear of the Lord. What He showed me is out of the sea of humanity there are those who display humility by listening to correction and instruction that leads to wisdom and reveals they have the fear of the Lord.

The Lord showed me a second target with the same various rings but had me write different words. The outer ring is humanity, next ring is pride, then ignoring instruction, rejecting correction, the next ring is foolish, and the inner circle is lawlessness. He said, out of the sea of humanity are those who are proud and don’t heed instruction, let alone accept correction, which manifests in foolishness. This then reveals a heart of lawlessness.

The height and depth of humility is the fear of the Lord; while the height and depth of pride is lawlessness. I love how the word of God is crystal clear that we have a choice as to who we want to be and what that choice sounds Iike to others around us. There is no mixture, we are operating in one or the other targets, but knowing what they lead to is important for it helps us repent and switch targets if we don’t like the one we are manifesting.