NOTES for Isa 29:13-23

The fear of the Lord is not terror caused by a sense of danger. It is the feeling of our own unworthiness, the feeling that we are unable to stand in Christ's love, a sense of shame at our pettiness and small-mindedness, a sense of guilt and the desire for our own destruction. What we desire destroyed is precisely what we see ourselves to be at the moment we encounter Christ. It is an unspoken prayer that we may be changed. It is almost physical pain, like the loss of someone we love. We understand that what separates us from Christ is only our shell, our mind, our character, and that we cannot change at once. We are held fast by the feeling that we cannot set anything right. And in this fear, silence comes to us. Peace comes to us, and still greater fear. A fear as though we had grown weak and no longer knew how to walk or speak, as though we were not responsible for ourselves. But this fear is fleeting, because we understand that we are being held, that He is near, that we are being raised from our knees. And firmness and joy are born in the soul. Christ is our hope. He will destroy the offender within us; He will wipe away our pettiness; He will forgive our talkativeness and self-love; He will untangle the knots of our fear. He will raise us from the dead on the day of His coming in Power and Glory.