Hebrew word study – fear – yara’  ירא  Yod Resh Aleph 

Psalms 23:4: “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”

Let’s just consider what the Psalmist might be saying:  “Yea though I walk though the valley of God’s shadow, I will fear no evil” Think of what that means. I cannot see God, I only see His shadow.  His shadow is obscure. The stars, the moon, the sun, all of nature is a shadow of God.  So how can we be certain that the shadows we see are God? Who hasn’t thought at sometime or another:  “Perhaps evolution is correct and all of this just happened by accident.  Maybe I am mistaking these shadows for God.”   It pretty much boils down to this simple fact preached throughout the ages, I accept it is by faith, I look at all creation and say: “Yes, it is a shadow of God and these shadows show me that He is near, He is with me.  I need not fear any evil for the creator of all these shadows stands on the other side of these shadows and it‘s object it‘s reality.  I cannot see God but I see His shadow and I know He is there.”   

It has been pretty hot outside lately but last night we have some heavy thunderstorms move through and this morning when I stepped outside it was sixty degrees with a mild wind. I could  feel that cool breeze, the warmth of the sun and the mild temperature yet it was all but a shadow, we are surrounded by this shadow and by faith I felt it was God’s shadow and that it was God hugging me, breathing on me.  I doubt many of my co-workers felt that the pleasant breeze was a hug from God.  I chose to imagine it and believe it was a hug from God. Believing these shadows are a reflection of God. It is a choice that I make and that is my reality.

In philosophy there is a discussion of shadows.  Does a shadow have color, if there is a spinning ball, does the shadow spin?  In other words how much does a shadow show of its object.  It shows more than we realize.  When I stepped out today, the sun, the temperature and the gentle breeze were for me a true reality of a hug from God. When I touching a flower to my cheek I chose to believe it is a kiss from God.  These are all but a shadow, but one day I will turn around and see the object of these shadows face to face and know His hug and His kiss in the reality.  You see the word muth which means death, really means a full understanding of God.  Death is nothing more than leaving the shadows behind and embracing the reality behind the shadows. As Paul said: “For me to live is Christ, to die is to gain.”  Philippians 1:21.   To live is to live with the Shadow of my Savior, to die means I live with the object, the real thing.

You think I’m crazy?  Well, maybe you remember a story by Plato. Plato wrote in his Plato’s Republic about a group of men who spent their whole lives in a cave. They were in chains and could only face the wall of the cave where the light from outside the cave cast shadows of the reality outside the cave. They never saw the true reality, only the shadows of that reality. They spent their time interpreting these shadows.  One day, one of the men escape from the cave and ventured out into the sunlight and saw the reality of all the shadows he had witnessed during his life time. He returned to the cave and told the other of the reality he witnessed.  They called him a liar and became angry with him for trying to destroy their belief system in what they thought the shadows meant. In fact, some rose up to kill him for speaking such crazy talk about the reality of the shadows. 

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