My God is an awesome God (Like totally awesome?)

Upon standing in a Sunday church service chanting that great chorus “Our God is an awesome God” (you know that one with the heavy pounding drums and us all getting amped and jumping up and down and stuff?) the thought crossed my mind – what does the word ‘awesome’ actually mean to us in our contemporary context? I suspect that the word isn’t always understood according to its intended meaning.

When I think of the way that the word ‘awesome’ is used in casual conversation, I instinctively think of blond girls in very pink outfits with small poodles in tow (that’s definitely a Legally Blonde influence – I’ll quickly add that I was obliged to watch the film in my film course). An example of the use of this word in this context might be “We went to go and tan on the beach yesterday and it was so warm and fun! It was totally awesome, you should’a been there, you totally missed out!” Or an example from another context, a scene from a surfing movie set in California perhaps, “We just came from the beach dude, the waves were smoking, totally awesome bro.”

In both of the above mentioned examples, the word ‘awesome’ denotes ‘really good’. In fact this word is used so frequently that it is beginning to sound worn out, like an old stinky running shoe. However, the word awesome is also used to mean something else. The word ‘awe’ is the root of the word ‘awesome’ and we use that word quite regularly as well. A recent example can be found in the catch phrase associated with America’s invasion of Iraq, the ‘shock and awe’ campaign. America began the campaign by dropping the biggest bombs they had in their arsenal on as many targets they could find in Iraq, and they did it at night. The hope was that this massive display of military might, which lit up the skies with flashes and filled their ears with ‘boom’, would fill the Iraqi army with such terror that they would be prompted to just give up and surrender.

The biblical use of the word ‘awesome’ to describe God always tends toward this second meaning. It is not trying to convey the fact that God is ‘like totally awesome, dude’ but rather that when you see him you’ll just give up the fight and surrender. Here’s an example

“When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!”” Mat 27:54

A dictionary definition of the word “awe” makes mention of both of the uses of the word that I have described. The predominant use, or the “proper” use of the word “awe” is described as:

“An overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration, fear, etc., produced by that which is grand, sublime, extremely powerful, or the like: in awe of god; in awe of great political figures.”

I would summarise then and say that the “awe” that God inspires in us is a mixture of amazement, reverence and fear, the kind of fear we get when we realize that something is so much bigger and more significant than ourselves. Like seeing an Elephant in the wild (which I did last year – awesome!), its a beautiful creature, majestic, but you aren’t prompted to jump out of the van and rush over and pet it. In the same breathe I would say that, in some way, God is, like, totally awesome. He’s my best friend, he’s a faithful father, he’s my precious king and I love him dearly. But let us get it clear, when we are singing “our God is an awesome God” it’s the big, awe-inspiring God that created the universe and sustains it with his strength that we are worshiping.