"Fear of the Lord"
Another way that will help you to cooperate with the Holy Spirit to clean or purify your heart of that which defiles you, restore you to right relationships, and help align you with God's will for your life is through allowing the Holy Spirit's gift of the "fear of the Lord" (see Isaiah 11:1-3) to ground your life.
Scripture teaches, “Happy the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in His commands” (Ps 112:1), and “the beginning of wisdom is to fear of the Lord” (Sirach 1:14; cf. Psalm 111:10; Proverbs 9:10). Fear of the Lord is your recognition and acceptance of God’s eternal and unchanging transcendence, holiness, perfection, greatness, truth, love, goodness, and mercy on whom you can firmly depend and in whom you can place your trust. "For 'in [God] we live and move and have our being'" (Acts 17:28). It is your acknowledgment that you are not God, and that God’s “thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts are higher than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9, NRSV).
We respond to this gift from the Holy Spirit with profound humility, respect, reverence, awe, and devotion for God, not out of fear of God’s infinite power, but because of our fear that our sin offends God, who is all good and deserving of our love and our worship. "You shall worship the Lord, your God, and him alone shall you serve.” (Luke 4:8); "Give to the LORD the glory due his name. Bow down before the LORD’s holy splendor (Psalm 29:2). You are called to "love the Lord your God with all of your heart, and with all of your soul, with all of your mind, and with all of your strength strength" and to love others as God loves us (Mark 12:30-31; John 13:34-35). "We love because God first loved us" (1 John 4:19). God's love never leaves us nor abandons us. It is we who separate ourselves from God through our sins and our failure to strive to do God's will for us to become the best version of ourselves.
As Pope Francis stated,
[The Holy Spirit’s gift of fear of the Lord] does not mean being afraid of God: we know well that God is Father, that he loves us and wants our salvation, and he always forgives, always; thus, there is no reason to be scared of him! Fear of the Lord, instead, is the gift of the Holy Spirit through whom we are reminded of how small we are before God and of his love and that our good lies in humble, respectful and trusting self-abandonment into his hands. This is fear of the Lord: abandonment in the goodness of our Father who loves us so much.
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Fear of the Lord allows us to be aware that everything comes from grace and that our true strength lies solely in following the Lord Jesus and in allowing the Father to bestow upon us his goodness and his mercy. To open the heart, so that the goodness and mercy of God may come to us. This is what the Holy Spirit does through the gift of fear of the Lord: he opens hearts. The heart opens so that forgiveness, mercy, goodness and the caress of the Father may come to us, for as children we are infinitely loved.
(See Pope Francis, General Audience, June 11, 2024
Ultimately, we are called to trust in God's unconditional and perfect goodness and love that will cast out all fear (see 1 John 4:18 NRSV).
We invite you to reflect on what keeps you from loving and trusting in God and following God's will for your life.