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What Does Ben Harper Mean: God Fearing Man?
“Listen mister brother sister
Family and friend
I fear with each day pass
Our time grows closer to the end”
It was about two years ago. One o’clock in the morning. And I was sitting up with a friend, chilling. Music playing. One of those nights.
And then this song came on. We played it again, and started talking about the words.
“Listen stranger passer by
And those I never knew
There's not one day that you are living
Has been promised to you”
With some wicked guitar strings, he says it over and over again, “I’m a God fearing man.”
“I am a God fearing man
I'm a God fearing man
I reach out for my God's hand
I'm a God fearing man”
What does Ben Harper mean?
“Listen mother sister brother
Relatives and kin
You want to know just where you're going
You got to know where you've been”
What does it mean to fear God?
(Don’t worry; I’m not writing to preach. I’m only writing in hopes of revealing our commonality. For though religions and people experience and see the world in many different ways, there are still many opportunities for us to understand our similarities.)
“Tell me what gives one the right
To say their God is better than anybody else
Don't we all have a right
To find God for our self”
And he says it again…
“I am a God fearing man
I'm a God fearing man
I reach up for my God's hand
I'm a God fearing man”
But the Bible and (I believe) Ben Harper’s song speak of fear in a different way—with a different definition than most of our first lessons on fear.
Imagine standing next to the ocean, how you feel in such moments. Next to a redwood, and acutely aware of your own insignificance. Or gazing down into the Grand Canyon, how small you are. And when you think about how these wonders were created—how this world from the unseen atom to the untold universe came to be—let yourself be in awe.
To fear God is to be in awe of God.
And if you have a different God, or don’t believe in any God, still—be amazed. As far as science has discovered, or what we’ve been told by the Bible, the Quran, the Torah, Buddah, or anything else, this world is the only one of it’s kind. There’s no other place like it.
May we be awestruck by that, and see the every day miracles of this place. May we feel wonder by just the day itself.
“When I rise with the morning sun
I give thanks to my God
For the gift of another one."
And when my day is over
And complete
I reach to my God
To put me back on my feet”
“I am a God fearing man
I'm a God fearing man
I reach up for my God's hand
I'm a God fearing man”
And when I said that I’m writing this with the hope to reveal our commonalities, well, may we understand that we are the same in our insignificance in this world, but that also our the complexity of our very own heartbeat is a miracle. And may we see that we are common in our need to feel reverence and wonder for this world.
God’s mercy—the world’s mercy—moves towards those people who fear Him—who are in awe of this world and its wonders.
