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Standing in Awe
by Dr. Monte Wilson

What do these scenarios all have in common?

• A minister describes God as The Big Guy
• An elderly person enters the room, and not one young man or woman stands up in respect
• A young woman speaks to an older woman as if she (the younger woman) were at least her equal, if not her superior
• A Junior High School Student slumping down in chair, hat pulled down over his eyes, answering his teacher’s query with a, “Yup.”

Each is an expression of irreverence.

One of the more common characteristics of adolescence is nonchalance: an en passant attitude toward everyone and everything. This is the silly season of hysteria, of independence, of bluff. The adolescent craves independence and superiority. He refuses to admit anything moves him: nothing fills him with awe or impresses him, and certainly nothing ever, ever surprises him. He is the Independent Man. However, while this is somewhat understandable in a 15 year old, it is not in a 25 or 35 year old.

I wonder if the desire to play this role is in direct proportion to our insecurity. We copy those people who inspire us with their virility, sensuality or independence: in other words, those who make us feel insecure! In the imitating, we hope to acquire their virility, sensuality, independence and security.

For the adolescent, to be reverent would be an admission of not being virile, sexy or superior. And in this state of mind there can be no education, and no transformation of the person: after all, "I already know it all. I bow before nothing and no one until I decide it is worthy of my recognition. I am sovereign. I am autonomous. I am my own lord.” Tragically, many of us have refused to turn sixteen for quite a number of years.

Reverence

To be reverent toward someone or something is to stand in awe of that person or thing. Such “awe” will be expressed in our demeanor, words and attitudes. And who or what do we stand in awe of? God, Goodness, Truth, Beauty…just for starters.

The healthy mature human knows that every Good possessing an authentic value requires an adequate and appropriate response, which includes reverence. Human life, as God designed it, is a life that accepts the gifts of God with gratitude, realizing that such gifts come with obligations to appreciate, to protect, and to make sacrifices to preserve.

• ldquo;Wow, dude!” is not an adequate or appropriate response to Christ’s love for us
• Shrugging my shoulders and saying, “That’ll do,” is an inadequate and inappropriate response to a friend’s act of sacrificial love
• Ignoring the obligation to steward my possessions—gifts from God—is an inadequate response to the gifts I have, as well as to the Giver of those gifts
• Treating the freedom that has been purchased and protected for me by the blood of our nation’s military as if it were a trifle is neither adequate nor appropriate

You get the picture.

Humility, appropriate behavior, appreciation, careful handling, respectful demeanor…all are packed into the word, “reverence.” Without a fully developed understanding of this posture of the soul, there will be little discipleship, scant education and no transformation of the individual. Why? Because it is only the reverent person whose soul is humbled before God and all that is of God that will stand in awe of “whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy…” (Philippians 4.8), allowing these values to act on him, and educate him, and transform him.