Fear the LORD (Proverbs 3:7-8)
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Proverbs 3:7-8
‘Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. 8 It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.’
Yesterday, we talked about trusting in the Lord with all our heart. Today, we see another call — to "fear the Lord." Verse 7 tells us to avoid being "wise in our own eyes", rather we are to ‘fear the Lord, and turn away from evil’. In other words, here we’re being encouraged to stop seeing the world, our lives, and our decisions through the lens of our own understanding (which ties back to yesterday’s verses), and instead see them through God’s eyes. To be wise in His eyes, to put Him above everything else, including how we perceive the world and how we think life ought to be lived.
And to live in this fear of the Lord is by nature to turn away from evil. As Habakkuk 1:13 reminds us, God’s eyes "are too pure to look on evil." Living in the fear of the Lord and living in sin can’t coexist. It’s like being at a crossroads, where one path leads toward reverence for God and the other toward evil. Solomon is urging us to take the less-traveled path, the one of fearing the Lord and rejecting sin.
Each path has its own destination, but verse 8 shows us the fruit of walking in the fear of God: "It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones."
Now I think this verse has physical implications, but I want to focus more so on the fact that it’s deeply spiritual.
When we live in the fear of the Lord, we enter into a right relationship with Him.
And in that relationship, our sinful flesh is healed by the blood of Jesus, our sins are atoned for, and our dry, weary bones are refreshed by His Spirit.
The God who makes dry bones come alive, as Ezekiel 37 reminds us, is the same God who brings true healing and refreshment to the bones that sustain and structure our lives.
So, let’s reflect on what this looks like in your life today.
Are there areas where you’re still "wise in your own eyes," relying on your own understanding instead of fearing the Lord?
Is there sin in your life—present evil—that you need to turn from?
And who do you know that’s still living "wise in their own eyes," someone whose heart is in desperate need of God’s healing and refreshment?
As we think about these questions, let’s take a moment to bring our hearts and thoughts before God in prayer.
