Do you fear God?

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“ We have to distinguish three things, then, three kinds of fear: mere respect, awe, and terror. Awe is, in fact, closer to terror than to respect; for awe and terror have in common passion and mystery . “
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Perfect Fear Casts Out All

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I believe a dose of fear is always healthy. It keeps us humble and helps us stay away from sin.
Do people convert out of fear? mostly not, in my experience, but for a few it may be a beginning. Like Jesus in the Garden of Olives when they came to arrest him and he said ‘I am He’ the Roman soldiers fell to the ground with terror in their hearts. I’d like to think they later converted.
 
Rather than fearing God in in the sense of being terrified I fear the consequences of my mortal sin. If I end up going to hell it’s my choice and doing and not God’s. This fear helps me to avoid sin and to confess when I fall into sin. If God were not gracious, merciful, forgiving and fair I would fear God. But since he is these things the only thing I have to fear is my own weakness and the consequences of that weakness. God gives me plenty of chances to repent, confess, show contrition and vow to change my ways. He is merciful
and forgiving. It is up to me to choose the path to eternal life or choose the road to damnation.
 
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I fear disappointing God. It’s like disappointing a parent who you know loves you dearly.

So what I feel is a sorrow for my sins and transgressions.

Over the past few years, certain events happened in my life that taught me God is not a passive observer who just stands by to see you sink or swim and does not care one way or another if you make it.

God is actively trying to save you however He needs your cooperation and consent. If I refuse his grace, I would put myself in a position where God cannot help me.

My two cents.
 
Good questions. I have been working for many years on the total trust and confidence in God of spiritual childhood and devotion to the mercy of God. St. Therese talks about how the way of fear made her paralyzed, but the way of trust gave her wings to quickly rise in the spiritual life. I’ve felt this too. I have occasional moments of scrupulous anguish when reviewing my past, but I am convinced this is an attempt by the devil to distrust or despair. I try to quickly say an act of complete trust to God and abandonment to His will. I use the sacraments of the Church frequently, pray a lot, and have made very good friends with people in high places—Mary and Joseph. So no I don’t fear God except in the filial sense of not wanting to jeopardize my relationship with Him, or
thwart His love for me.
 
I view God as a friend not a judge so I would say no I don’t fear God. But if I say I don’t fear God I feel like I should because God is so powerful. But that’s the thing, our God is a God who demands sacrifice and agony and suffering. Our God wants love, humility, compassion, and mercy. Those are virtues one can cultivate through fear
 
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If you do not fear God then you will fear everything else.

As for the OP, thank goodness I do not know Fr. Barry nor his writings then.

If you do not fear God, then you do not love Him. It is as simple as that.

And this fear is not just “awe”. It is true fear, and even outright terror. And this kind of fear of the Lord, or rather fear for the Lord, is logical if one thinks about it.
 
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I fear too much. My brain will explode from fear of Him. I fear both for my life here and afterlife. There is no word to describe my fear of God.
 
If you fear God then all of your other fears will fade in the background, still there maybe but manageable. If not, then either you’re not fearing God, or you may have a medical/psychological condition. Get help.
 
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Baloney. I don’t fear God. I love Him. And His love for me means that I don’t have to fear anything. I know it is a matter of semantics since words are used differently by different people, but I don’t fear God and I don’t fear the world. I love God and He protects me from fear. If anyone has a different experience, that is their experience. Mine is mine. And I am grateful for mine.
 
So it’s OK to hurt Him by sinning since you love God? Because that is what filial fear of the Lord is, which the more perfect fear and is different from servile fear of Him.
“Accordingly if a man turn to God and adhere to Him, through fear of punishment, it will be servile fear; but if it be on account of fear of committing a fault, it will be filial fear, for it becomes a child to fear offending its father.” St. Thomas Aquinas
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When we sin, God begs to come back to our hearts by knocking (Revelation 3:20). Do you not fear kicking him out?

When we sin, God longs for me from afar (Luke 15:20). Are you not touched by this?

When one of us sin, God leaves the 99 saints to look for that one, and rejoices when He finds them.

He is the Hound of Heaven. Even when the “night shall be my light in my pleasures” He searches and finds me (Psalms 139).

He died for us while we were His enemies (Romans 5:8).

Can you not see how much He loves us, and thus when we reject Him how much it hurts Him? Do you not fear this?

Besides, fear of the Lord is a gift of the Holy Spirit.
CCC 1831 The seven gifts of the Holy Spirit are wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord.
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Are you telling me that by the Holy Spirit coming to me, who is Love Himself by the way (1 John 4:8), and giving me fear of Him, He is contradicting Himself?

Now do you see why it is why I say that fear of the Lord is actually fear for the Lord? Why I said when you do not fear the Lord you do not actually love Him?

THIS is what I do not like about the people who say “I do not fear God because I love Him.” They think only of THEMSELVES. They do not think of the love God has for them.
 
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Edwyn said:
THIS is what I do not like about the people who say “I do not fear God because I love Him.” They think only of THEMSELVES. They do not think of the love God has for them.
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Look, that is your interpretation of things but not mine. God doesn’t expect or need my fear, he only wants my love. And that I give him freely, all the time. That is not thinking of myself, that is thinking of him. I can’t fear hurting him because I don’t reject him. I can’t imagine that - it would be like rejecting myself.

You talk an awful lot about sinning. So perhaps it is good that you fear sin. The simple answer to that is not to sin. Sin is a rejection of God, but if we don’t reject him, we don’t sin. You do know that to be a mortal sin, it must meet three criteria, don’t you?

The Three conditions that are necessary for mortal sin to exist:
  • Grave Matter: The act itself is intrinsically evil and immoral. …
  • Full Knowledge: The person must know that what they’re doing or planning to do is evil and immoral. …
  • Deliberate Consent: The person must freely choose to commit the act or plan to do it.
I don’t see it as hard to refuse to give deliberate consent to things that are grave (intrinsically evil and immoral), and that I have full knowledge of being grave.

That is not to say that I don’t commit venial sins but I am always sorry for these when I become aware of them, and rather than fear God’s reaction to my venial sins, I rejoice in his love and forgiveness of my sins. Jesus didn’t sacrifice himself because I am perfect or because he wanted me to fear God, but because I am imperfect and he wants me to love God and to rejoice in God’s love for me.

I just dislike the word fear in relation to God because I don’t feel it. I never feared my mother either, when she was alive. I knew that she loved me and I loved her and that I would never knowingly do something to hurt her and she would always forgive my unintentional mistakes. Can I love God any less than I have loved my mother? I don’t think so. This is just my take on things. I don’t expect anyone to agree with me, but God and I are ok with it. 😊
 
Fair enough. As St.Thomas Aquinas said, fear of the Lord is actually perfected in heaven because it is then unthinkable to sin. And that also happens when we get closer to God while on earth. Fear of the Lord makes one feel even the fear of God less often because it makes sin more and more unthinkable.

Indeed, fear of the Lord is more spiritual and less emotional. It is, after all, a spiritual gift.

I however, disagree with the notion of removing the word “fear”. That’s, using your term, “baloney”. It removes the gravity of this Gift of the Holy Spirit, muddles the clear teaching of the Church (and oh boy how much this is needed), and erases the link of this gift to the curing of the sin of cowardice, among other things.
 
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Oh well, I guess we aren’t all going to agree on everything. What do I fear? I fear the priests who abuse children and those who cover up for them by moving them to another parish. I fear blind obedience to anything that allows a person give up their free will and ability to discern for themselves.
I don’t fear God for God is love and how can one fear love? But we can agree to disagree on this - that is free speech.
 
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