Fear-of-the-Lord

Eugene Peterson strings four words together, forming a new locution which describes a crucial aspect of the life of faith. I think I'm experiencing it, and it's not pleasant.

Life feels a little turbulent, out of control, frightening. Several Godzilla-sized monsters loom on the horizon, waiting to consume me. Unanswered questions. Fear of the future. Fear of failure. Potential crises, churning like a boiling pot of liquid, seem ready to spill over onto me.

Then I read Peterson's explanation of FOTL. He lists the tell-tale symptoms: it "includes all the emotions that accompany being scared -- the disorientation, the not-knowing what is to happen to me, the realization that there is far more here than I had any idea of."

When I came upon this paragraph (in Christ Plays), I felt like a lost man who had stumbled across a clue, carved on some ancient cave wall, that would lead him home. These horrible weights pressing down on my chest, with their suffocating darkness, were a gift from God. They drove me to pray as I hadn't prayed in months. They drove me to look outside myself. They drove me to God, home. The fear-of-the-Lord.