Revelry into Reverence

"You offer forgiveness, that we might learn to fear You." Psalm 130:4

It takes a while, intones the usually strict Elizabeth Elliott, for revelry to turn into reverence.

In this, she taps into the same well of persevering compassion as does the psalmist in Psalm 130:4. Both recognize the clumsiness or disrespect with which we approach the Divine. They look back and credit Him with forbearance as He overlooks the most glaring marks of our spiritual immaturity. As we enjoy communion with Christ, He knows His company is the literal Miracle-Gro to our sanctification. Just as lesser misplaced fears are learned, the fear of God which accompanies hunger and thirst for righteousness is learned over time also.

How do we react, though, when someone violates our latest understanding of how sanctity behaves? Sleep in church? How dare they! I did that well past the point when people would overlook it because of my age, and yet God has been faithful to grow His Word in my heart in His time. Forsake daily time in the Bible? How could anyone be so deliberately slack! Although this practice is now a fixture in my life, it hasn't always been so. I may even undertake such devotional exercises as much because of the momentum of an accumulation of yesterdays as because of today's sincere desire to know more of Christ.

May our prayer be, as believers more reverent than some we see, in keeping with the perspective of Psalm 130:4. God's is the life-transforming seed. God's is the timing and the means by which to water it. God's is the discretion to demonstrate the growth in the likeness of His Son in the fear of Him in the uneven, sometimes exciting, sometimes exasperating, ways He will. Plenty will be the areas in His physical Presence where the most seasoned of us realize we have failed to adequately fear Him. In those areas, looking back, we will celebrate His grace all the more. Why not start now as we look on His varying handiwork in the believers around us?

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