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"Fear not, for I am with thee; whither soever thou go est". This is a promise of God. If one chooses to believe this promise, one can be assured with confidence always and forever to be in the presence of a loving, protective, Heavenly Father. One may feel similarly comforted while meditating the words, "as I walk through the valley of the shadow of death."

One may imagine the valley of the shadow of Death an awfully scary place. First one travels past death, then past the shadow of death. This gets one just to the valley that is in the shadow of death. Then one walks through the valley of the shadow.

Death seems dark. And yet it casts a shadow. To enter death's shadow merely to walk through a darker place; the valley of the shadow of death; seems terrifying.. If the rod and staff gave King David comfort, well, it should be good enough for anyone to be in the presence of them.

You are most likely saying, "This is wrong. He should be writing on the 'no' side". Well, fear of God is to be experienced as in the sense of wondrous awe at His majestic power over death; not fright of His wrath.

The only time God is to be feared in the sense of scared is when offense is committed against Him. The offender's failure to repent (experiential sorrow and determination to right the wrong) causes removal of His divine grace and mercy (figuratively known as rod and staff). This is a bad place to be. Most likely a worse place than the valley of the shadow of death. The offender is on his/her own. The promise of comfort is not kept by God because of "breach" in agreement with Him. His commandments were violated. The only hope of reconciliation is acceptance of Resurrected Christ as propitiation (payment) for sin. A valid terror is rejection of Christ as anointment of Divine Grace.

Experience has shown He is able to deliver me from me. Time and again He has been there for me even when I did not consciously realize His Divine Authority and Presence at the moment of impact. I am in awe of those "miracles".

Another reason to fear God is His Judgment on sin. It doesn't seem fair that God allowed the Devil to test Job to the extent of loss of all possessions and even his health. Job was told by his wife to "curse God and die." He never did. He never lost faith. God was well pleased with Job and restored all to him and then some. If he had lost faith, the Devil would have gained victory. This serves as wonderful incentive to the rest of us to remain faithful to God. There are more reasons to be scared of God than are sins committed. There are more reasons to be in awe of His Mighty Majesty than contain the number of atoms in the universe.

Learn more about this author, Michael Shepard.
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