The Fear of the Lord

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge,

But fools despise wisdom and instruction.” - Proverbs 1:7

I have worked at several large companies over the years.  There is one scenario that I saw repeatedly that never ceased to surprise me.  I call it the lesson of the overconfident underling.  This would happen when someone at the lower level  of the company would get fed up with their lot in life and then would decide that they were going to take it to the boss.  They would go in with all of their pride, their reasons and their anger.  They finally had the privilege of “telling the boss off.”  There were only ever two results that I ever noticed to follow.  Either, the employee was humbled to find out that their small part in the company was actually not as important as they had thought, or the employee “won the fight” and was fired.  In these cases the universal attitude of the employee was a lack of appropriate  reverence and respect (fear) for the boss either led to them to be a fool growing towards wisdom (as in the case of the employee who was humbled) or of the loss of their situation (as with the employee who was fired).

Our earthly authorities and supervisors are all terribly fallible.  They can be wrong, misinformed and mistaken.  Yet, God is never wrong, misinformed or mistaken.  Our understanding of this reality, and our humility and submission to Him through all circumstances and instances of life will determine the quality of our time on this planet.  Fear of the Lord and humility lead to wisdom.  Pride and arrogance lead to destruction.