Psalm 33:8
"Let all the earth fear the Lord; Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him."

I consider myself one of the biggest promoters of the need for a sense of wonder in our view of God. But there are times when I am by myself and I sit and wonder. Not at God’s goodness, not at His mercy, not even at His might and power. Rather I wonder if I truly wonder in God at all. Do I truly have a sense of awe in Him? Do my thoughts of Him cause me to stop and go, "Hmmm"? Or do I just take Him for granted. How do I know? How can I tell if I am truly in awe of God?

I don’t believe you can be truly in awe of God until you fear Him. One of the definitions of the word used for awe in the above text is: to dread, fear, stand in awe, to be afraid. To truly be in awe there must be a sense of fear. 1 Samuel 12:14 says. "If you fear the Lord and serve Him and obey His voice, and do not rebel against the commandment of the Lord, then both you and the king who reigns over you will continue following the Lord your God." If we fear the Lord, then we would obey the Lord. Hmmm. What did God say to King Saul through Samuel?

"Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, As in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, And to heed than the fat of rams." (1 Samuel 15:22) To obey is better than sacrifice. We bring the sacrifice of praise, but do we obey His voice?

Another interesting note in 1 Samuel 12:14 is that God said that if we fear the Lord and serve Him and obey His voice and do not rebel against Him the not only will we continue to follow the Lord but so will the king who reigns over us. Hmmmm. So He is saying that if we don’t like what the president is doing and we think he isn’t following God, then rather than complain or protest, we should examine our own lives and make sure that we are truly following God. So if I truly wonder at God, if I have a true awe of Him and fear Him as I ought, then the whole country will be affected by it. Not just my life, and my family’s lives, but my neighbors’, my friends, my co-workers, my bosses, everyone. So let us learn how to wonder at Him in every sense of the word.