Awesome God

“Awesome” is a word that I toss around far too often, too casually, to the point where it has little meaning. It’s a filler word that could easily be substituted with “terrific” or “great” or “huh” in many cases. And yet its use in the Bible is anything but mundane – something that is awesome is literally “worthy of awe”.

Have you ever been so full of awe that you just stop, unable to fully develop a thought as an experience, or a vision, or a thought washes over you? Perhaps it was a vista at the top of a mountain, or the innocence of a newborn’s face, or the first time that you ever heard someone truly special say “I love you.” Awe works in quiet, still moments of supreme importance – something our society has too little time for these days. No wonder that it’s hard to look at God with anything approaching awe, even as our mouths sing “Our God is an awesome God” on Sundays.

The Bible uses the word “awe” or “awesome” 51 times, and never in a flippant, casual manner. “Worship God acceptably with reverence and awe” Hebrews 12:28 instructs; David can only stammer that “I stand in awe of your laws” in Psalm 119:120; the crowds in Matthew 9:8 were filled with awe of Jesus when he healed the paralytic; the early church in Acts 2 was “filled with awe” as miracles and wonders happened around them daily; God’s name, His creation, His acts and His decisions are constantly coupled with the simple description of “awesome”. In fact, only once does the Bible deem anything a person does as awesome – when King Solomon, bestowed with wisdom from God, hands down a judgment in 1 Kings 3:28.

Job testified about God in Job 37:22 when he said, “Out of the north he comes in golden splendor; God comes in awesome majesty!” In Job’s mind, there was no alternative to standing in overwhelmed humility as the mighty, sovereign, awesome majesty of God approached.

Very few things in our life really deserve the term “awesome”, even though we use it and hear it constantly. God, however, does deserve it, and we should give it to Him freely.