Courage

He that hath the true fear of God in his heart hath no room therein for any other fear. -CROMWELL.

 

As every positive word has a negative counterpart and interpretation, so the word “fear,” which is the ghastly hydra­-headed monster that besets the footsteps of man from cradle to grave. It has a thou­sand different titles and names—is personal and impersonal. One person might quake with it, another thrill with joy. It is easy for a trained pilot to soar about the heavens like a glorious bird, but the same movements may cause the untutored to be thrown into paroxysms of terror and dismay.

So likewise the expression “Fear of God” brings to the minds of many the fear of a most terrible tribal God who takes keen pleasure in prancing upon them at unexpected moments and bringing the most fiendish devices to pass, while to another it means a reverence and security with all attending benefits.

A savage, after seeing some of the terrible things that can be done with electricity, might fear it, and even obey its injunctions as in­terpreted by a savage medicine-man. He might pre^fer to stay by his rushlight rather than have anything to do with this fearful thing. But an enlightened man will not de­prive himself of the glorious benefits and help derived from the proper understanding and use of the power.

There are many people who profess to be civilized—-and smile with derision at the so ­called savage—-who worship in ignorance a God as replete with whims, moods, and fearful power as any heathen God dared to be. While professing to worship a Father­ God who is mindful of his own, they are filled with superstitious beliefs concerning him.

I heard a man—-with great emotion in his voice, talking to this God regarding the need of money—finally conclude his high-flown statements of an impersonal God with, “Now, Father-God, you know if it is best for me to have this money it will be forthcoming.” He was the spirit of humility and contriteness, and was as near a pagan praying to a glorified figure of clay as he could possibly be. Imagine praying for the invisible current of electricity to let you have light if it thought it was well for you to have light. If you are in total darkness and have to read, it is an obvious fact that you need light. Yet thousands are thinking to wheedle some special favor from this God while afraid, and filled with superstitious fears regarding Him, so that their humility is nothing but a robe of hypocrisy.

“The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.”

The wisdom spoken of is the understand­ing of God, and the fear that is mentioned is the reverence that one naturally has for fundamental laws. A musician, the more he awakens to the glorious realm of harmony, the more he reverences (fears) the laws of harmony; he does not see in them anything that will destroy him, or from which he can curry personal favors. No matter how con­trite he has been, no matter how many times he has told the principle that he is a miser­able artist, full of terrible discords, and un­worthy of the power to express harmony. As an artist he knows that, the moment he falls away from the laws of harmony, chaos is produced in his playing, and he will even­tually completely destroy himself as a musician if he continues to disregard these laws for long.

“The wrath of God,” or electricity, or dis­cord, then, must be in the keeping of man, no matter what may be said to the contrary.

“The wrath of God” is man’s own wrath, or his ignorance or “fear” of God in the negative sense of the word. Many people have interpreted the fear of God as meaning a power that constantly requires sacrifice of everything but the most ordinary things of life. Others have a tribal God who is a be­stower of personal favors. Still others imagine they are one of the few chosen to express this power-that they are especially consecrated, and that all others must look up to them. Jesus, the great Way-Shower, see­ing this tendency in man, made it clear that the power he was employing was impersonal, and as available to the man in the street as it was to him. “Call not me good.” Well might he have said, “Do not worship me.”

“I AM wonderfully and fearfully made.” Do you begin to understand the FEAR of God, and how it operates successfully over the “fearfully” made body? Do you begin to see what is hidden in the word “fear”? Do you understand how the currents of electricity run freely over a perfectly equipped house? Wherever there is wiring and equipment there it appears in whatever form it is needed, and that form is to neutralize a belief in a lack of some kind. So also the “fear” of God operates over the body, which is “wonderfully and fearfully” made. Many an electric­ally equipped establishment has a system of wiring and switchboards wonderfully and fearfully made. The most ordinary man in the street would not find it anything unusual if told that the same power could freeze and burn at the same time, in the same room; he would not find it strange that this power could connect him instantly with the other end of the earth. No, he has recognized this fact, and accepted it.

That the power we call God operates in the same manner is un-understandable to many people. They want to know what “method” or what power you use to neutralize disease as differentiated from poverty; what affirma­tions you say to bring about happiness as differentiated from those used to produce prosperity-as if there were a different set of currents in an electrical wave to produce different manifestations. God is impersonal, omnipotent, and omniscient, as well as omni­present. He is everything at the same time. The moment you recognize the Presence of God in any place, the situation or condition of human ignorance becomes nil.

When you begin to recognize the impersonal nature of God, great areas of fear leave you. You realize then that it is not a matter of the power working or not; it is a question: Are you willing to let it into manifestation? “When you are ready, I will do the work.” When you are ready to stop this ridiculous praying to a man-god and come before The Presence with the glorious readiness to let The Power into expression, then will you see and know ” The words I [the I AM] speak are not of myself, but him that sent me.” The “words” are the manifestations that you give forth as the Son o/ the Living God.

Do you begin to see why it is, “if you make your bed in [the] hell [of belief] I AM there”? To recognize this is to see the darkness of hell dissipated in the light of Spirit. To the human sense, flames may have light and a burning heat, but this is nothing as compared with the light of Spirit. Hell is always per­sonal, and limited to the belief of a person; heaven is universal and everywhere present, and is available to everyone.

That this power has always been, goes without saying, just as we know the principle of the automobile always existed. Jesus might have ridden into Jerusalem in an auto­mobile as on an ass, as far as the existence of the principle is concerned. No one recognized the principle; hence it did not seem to exist. In the same way you, in your human dark­ness, do not recognize the presence of heaven here and now, and so it does not exist to you.

Because of the limitations of human lan­guage, terms of symbology and parables are used to bring out the hidden meaning of the visible-invisible; yet it is ridiculous to com­pare the power of God with the power of electricity.

The Power is so much beyond the limited illustrations man can give, that words utterly fail to convey the idea, and the best illustra­tions only raise many queries in the mind of the reader. Who can define the Infinite?

The first fear, then, to be eradicated is the false interpretation of the “fear of God,” not the belief in a power opposed to God. When you are unafraid of God because you are beginning to understand the ALL-Now of the All-Presence, and are ceasing the terrible struggle to make this Power work according to human standards; when you cease to fear him as a terrible tyrant, meting out horrible punishments to helpless victims of his caprice —then will you begin to know “the peace that passeth all understanding, “for” in the twinkling of an eye “you will see that all fears are induced merely by the lack of under­standing of God-“the fear of God “-the understanding of this great Power so com­pletely fills you that there is no room for any other ” fear.”

“The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.” The reverence for, and aligning of oneself with, this glorious Power, is the beginning of wisdom. You will see the human fears for what they are-the product of a double mind. A man I met, working in the service of God, was afraid lest he could not get sufficient money to keep his church in operation. What about it? Do you suppose that this great Power, desiring to express it­self, fails to supply everything necessary to make this possible, without the aid or assist­ance of man? Who is this man who thinks he has to strain every nerve to bring in the Christ Kingdom? Who is this poor benighted soul who imagines that if he does not make a place for God to express, God will not be expressed? Where is that one who is seek­ing no favors, nor any permission to express that which God hath given him to express? Where is the one that needs no recommenda­tion, but finds the temple doors flung wide open to him?  Is it that one who, as Crom­well says, “hath the true fear of God in his heart” to such an extent that “there is no room for any other fear”?

You who read this page, what is the nature of your fear? First, what of the fear of God? What do you actually feel in your heart regarding this God? Are you afraid of him? Do you fear him in the old sense of the word, or do you “fear” (reverence) him as the great Impersonal Power? If you but learn to be unafraid of this Power, you will be like the learned electrician. Your fear and super­stition regarding the truth will melt away along with the other fears of evil, poverty, and disease.

“The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.” Do you hear, you who read this line? The door is opening to you-the door into the glorious land of understanding, through which you may enter and be free. They (your fears) may seem terrible and imminent. They may seem sere to annihilate you until you learn that through the unafraid state of mind they will flee. You cannot fear anything when your heart is full of the fear of the Lord, remembering that you are won­derfully and “fearfully” made, and that the power which is to activate this mechanism is now in full manifestation.

“Come, ye children, hearken unto Me; and I will teach you the fear of the Lord.” The I AM will reveal to the unafraid soul all the wonders that are hidden beneath the “fear.” The eyes of the blind will be opened. You will begin to see that although some may say “Peace, peace, and there is no peace,” and some may retain “the fear of the Lord” in their hearts and suffer the pangs of the damned, yet others may be so filled with the “fear of the Lord “that no other fear can enter. Do you see? Do you hear—you who read this line? Does not your heart suddenly burn with a glorious joy? Are you not aflame with the glory of the new revela­tion-you who read this line? You have nothing to fear because you have the “fear of God.”

You will begin to read the secret doctrine and see the things that are hidden away from the wise and prudent. You will begin to see how the letter often contradicts itself as well as confuses. Witness this for prosperity;

“By humility and fear of the Lord are riches and honor and life.”

Interpret this from the negative meaning of the word “fear” and you have a contrary argument to the non-fear state that appears to be necessary for the relative world of finance to-day. Fear is to be ejected at all costs, and as fear so it is, but consider this with its true meaning, with your heart full of it, and you will see that prosperity is not a matter of demonstration, but a matter of recognition. You cannot help but manifest prosperity, any more than an electric bulb could refuse to illuminate when the power is turned on.

“Search the Scriptures.” You will learn to search the deep hidden meaning of the Word. “I will reveal myself to you.”

It is only when your heart is full of the Dear of the Lord that you can truly say, “I shall fear no evil,” concluding with the glorious reason, “For thou (the understanding) art with me.”

“He that hath the true fear of God in his heart hath no room for any other fear.”

 

It is wonderful.

 

Walter C. Lanyon