A Thought On God

This could also be titled, "Man's Thinking On How To Operate With God"

I'm pretty sure more people than just myself have noticed, the bathroom can also be called the Reading Room. Don't worry, that's as graphic as it gets. The current book sitting in the bathroom is titled An Enemy Called Average by John L. Mason. It's basically one of those self help/positivity books written by a christian author. Overall, it serves its purpose, but I noticed in one of the mutliple short chapters covered in this book, a list on how to attain godly wisdom.

Most of them are pretty standard: Please God, Follow his ways, look to Him, Pray, etc etc. But to top the list I noticed something I found contradictorily odd. FEAR GOD!

Many churches I have been in attendance of at one time or another, tell me that God is good, and that all things good come from God. That negative things in our life are a result of our humanness, or influences of Satan. Fear appears to be a pretty big negative thing, and it is something that oftentimes holds us back.
God commanded us to move forward, to take dominion over the earth.

Many issues I have had with the churches, are that many of them are just loaded with certain human oddities, do this, don't do that. If you did what you werent supposed to do, confess to another guy and he can wipe it out for you, but if you dont, somehow you arent as good a member of the church as those who do, and so on and so forth. The basic core message we are taught as kids in Sunday School is that God is good, He is our God, he sent his Son, Jesus Christ to die for our sins, and if we believe that, we're good as gold and looking forward to our trip to Heaven. As we get older, suddenly a whole litany of rules and regulations get introduced to us, through whatever church we attend, and how these are how we should act to be a good christian.

Anyways, I'm rambling... So if God is good, and fear is bad, why would I combine the two? Why should I fear Goodness? If its good, I should like it and embrace it. If its bad I should shun it. At least this is the message I have gotten from multiple sources. Maybe I'm just not understanding things clearly. If I am gripped with fear of goodness, what motivation is this move forward and accept all that God has to offer me? Do good unto others is big teaching, but the whole message of "fear God" now suddenly adds an addendum to this: Do good unto others, ...OR ELSE!

It all seems to be one big mess to me. Do I operate with love in my heart, or fear? Courage or trepidation? Strength or weakness?