The Beauty of Holy Awe: Rediscovering What It Means to Fear God
In the Shadow of Love's Wings
The memory comes to me in fragments of colored light. I am small, perched on the edge of a wooden pew, watching dust motes dance in the slanted sunbeams that pierce through stained glass. The air is heavy with incense, and Sister Catherine's voice carries through the chapel like smoke: "Above all else, my children, be God-fearing."
Fear. The word settles in my chest like a stone.
Even then, at seven years old, I knew enough of fear: the racing heart when thunder crashed overhead, the tight throat before a darkened basement, the trembling hands after a nightmare. But this was different. This was God – who my mother told me counted every hair on my head, who the Bible said was love itself. How could love demand fear?
This question…
Would haunt me through decades of faith, like a shadow I couldn't quite catch, a rhythm I couldn't quite master. It followed me through sleepless nights and quiet chapels, through whispered prayers and shouted questions. Until one morning, standing on a cliff edge in Montana, everything changed.
The dawn was breaking over the Rockies, painting the world in colors I had no names for. Below me, an eagle rode the thermals, wings spread in perfect stillness. And suddenly, watching this dance of light and wind and wings, I felt it – a sensation beyond language, a stunning awareness of my own smallness against the canvas of creation. It wasn't fear as I had known it. It was something older, deeper, truer.
The Hebrews had a word for it…
Yirah. We translate it as "fear," but like so many ancient words, it carries worlds within its syllables. Yirah is what Abraham felt when he saw the stars and heard God's promise. It's what Moses experienced before the burning bush. It's what Mary knew when the angel's words changed everything.
This holy fear – this yirah – isn't the fear that makes us run away. It's the awe that brings us to our knees. It's not terror of punishment; it's trembling at perfection. It's what the poet Rainer Maria Rilke meant when he wrote, "Every angel is terrifying" – not because angels are dangerous, but because their beauty is almost too much for mortal hearts to bear.
Think of a young musician hearing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony for the first time, tears streaming down their face. Think of an astronomer glimpsing a nebula through a telescope, gasping at colors that shouldn't exist. Think of a parent holding their newborn child, overwhelmed by love so fierce it hurts. This is yirah. This is holy fear.
To fear God, I've come to understand, is not to cower before a tyrant. It's to stand at the edge of infinite love and let it undo you completely. It's to look into the face of mercy and be transformed by what you see. It's to know, bone-deep, that you are standing on holy ground.
The ancient Desert Fathers spoke of something they called penthos – a divine sorrow, a blessed grief. It's the ache we feel when we glimpse God's beauty and realize how far we've wandered from it. It's the exquisite pain of being loved more perfectly than we can comprehend. This, too, is part of holy fear.
I see it now…
In the stories that shaped my faith. When Isaiah cries, "Woe is me, for I am undone!" in the temple, he's experiencing this holy fear. When Peter falls at Jesus' feet after the miraculous catch of fish and begs, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man," he's touching this same mystery. When Mary Magdalene clutches at the risen Christ and has to learn to let go, she's dancing with this divine terror.
The paradox is this: in God's economy, this fear becomes perfect freedom. When we fear God rightly – when we stand in awe of Love itself – all lesser fears lose their power. What is failure to one who has glimpsed eternal glory? What is judgment to one who has tasted perfect grace? What is death to one who has felt the breath of Life?
I think now of that small boy in the chapel, wrestling with a word too big for his heart to hold. I want to tell him: don't be afraid of fear itself. The fear that's coming for you is not what you think. It's not a monster in the dark. It's the first light of dawn breaking over mountains you didn't know existed. It's the catch in your throat when you finally see what love really means.
This is what it means to be God-fearing: to live in the constant awareness that we are loved by Love itself. To walk through our days with hearts trembling not at wrath, but at wonder. To let ourselves be swept up in a mystery too vast for our minds to grasp but perfect for our souls to rest in.
The rabbis say that where there is fear of heaven, words are few. So let me end with this: The fear of God is not the end of wisdom but its beginning. It's not the destination but the first step of an endless journey into light. It's the holy tremor in our hearts that whispers, "Take off your shoes. The ground beneath your feet is holy. And so are you."
And perhaps…
That's what Sister Catherine was trying to tell us all along, in that incense-filled chapel so many years ago. Not that we should be afraid, but that we should be awake. Awake to the wonder. Awake to the glory. Awake to the love that holds every atom of creation in its endless dance.
For to fear God is nothing less than to fall in love with Wonder itself, and to let that wonder remake us, moment by moment, into beings capable of bearing more light than we ever thought possible.
This is my testimony, written in trembling: That perfect love doesn't cast out fear – it transforms it into awe. And in that transformation, we find ourselves finally, fully, fearlessly alive.
