Lesallan Bostron
July 31, 2025
What Remains in Life
Lesallan Bostron
July 31, 2025
Abstract
Modern culture persuades us that personal worth is measured by visible success—cars, clothes, curated square-footage. Yet possessions decay, markets crash, and styles drift into yesterday’s landfill. Drawing on biblical wisdom literature and contemporary social-science research, this essay argues that reverence for God—often called “the fear of the Lord”—is the only orientation that endures. First, I review how consumerism promises more than it can deliver. Next, I define “fear of God” as an attitude of awe-infused obedience. Finally, I translate that reverence into practical disciplines that survive every market cycle: gratitude, Sabbath, and generosity.
Consumerism’s Hollow Centre
Early twenty-first-century societies are awash in stuff. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2024), the average American household owns over 300,000 individual items. Meanwhile self-storage has ballooned into a $40-billion industry, and “decluttering” gurus now sell books about fixing the anxiety created by over-abundance. This irony—buying more advice to manage too many things—exposes the cycle:
- Desire is stoked by advertising.
- Acquisition delivers a dopamine hit.
- Hedonic adaptation dulls the pleasure.
- Repeat.
The phenomenon aligns with Ecclesiastes, where the Teacher discovers that labor “under the sun” can never satisfy because human appetite is “never filled” (Ecclesiastes 1:8, English Standard Version). Possessions are therefore not sinful per se; they are just too fragile to hold ultimate meaning.
Defining “Fear of God”
The Hebrew phrase yirʾat YHWH, often rendered “fear of the LORD,” does not signify terror but a posture of reverent awe that leads to trustful obedience (Waltke, 2010). It is the inner compass that gives weight to life when every external landmark shifts. Scripture compresses the argument into a single line: “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man” (Ecclesiastes 12:13).
Psychologists would frame the same insight as transcendent orientation—an anchoring narrative that resists consumer churn. In Pew Research Center’s multination–survey, respondents who rated faith as their “dominant life-organizing principle” reported higher resilience scores than peers who prioritized income or achievements (Pew Research Center, 2018). Faith does not erase anxiety, but it supplies an interpretive grid larger than current circumstances.
Practices That Outlast Possessions
Gratitude Journaling
Thankfulness shifts attention from what is lacking to what already exists. Emmons and McCullough (2003) showed that participants who kept weekly gratitude lists reported 25 % greater life satisfaction after just ten weeks. Unlike material goods, gratitude cannot be repossessed, stolen, or devalued by inflation.
Sabbath Margin
The fourth commandment gives structure to the fear of God by interrupting production (Exodus 20:8-11). A weekly pause confesses that life’s value is not indexed to productivity metrics. Modern experiments with “digital Sabbaths” have cut reported burnout by up to 30 % in knowledge-worker cohorts (McCurdy & Basden, 2021).
Generosity
Jesus warned, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21). Regular giving pries the fingers off one’s own stash, converting abstract reverence into concrete love. In longitudinal studies, households that donate more than 10 % of income score higher on measures of relational intimacy and subjective well-being (Smith & Hill, 2019). Money released becomes meaning gained.
Discussion
If reverence for God truly endures, why do so few Western believers translate belief into practice? Partly because consumer technologies monetize distraction. Notifications yank attention from the eternal toward the ephemeral. Thus cultivating fear of God demands counter-liturgies—habits that rehearse ultimate allegiance:
- Scripture before screens: reading a Psalm before unlocking the phone each morning.
- First-fruits budgeting: scheduling digital transfers to charities on payday, so generosity is not an afterthought.
- Embodied worship: kneeling or lifting hands during private prayer, letting the body teach the soul.
These micro-rituals amplify the awareness that “my life is hid with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3), a status immune to stock-market dips or algorithmic rank.
Conclusion
Possessions are tools, not testimonies of worth. They break, upgrade, or end up in the resale app. What remains is the quiet gravity of a life ordered around Someone larger than the self. To fear God is to locate identity in the only One whose value never depreciates. When the account balances reset to zero—at death or the next recession—reverence still stands, bearing witness that the human soul was made for more than things.
Blessings,
Lesallan
References
Emmons, R. A., & McCullough, M. E. (2003). Counting blessings versus burdens: An experimental investigation of gratitude and subjective well-being in daily life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(2), 377-389.
McCurdy, K., & Basden, B. (2021). Rest for the wired soul: Digital Sabbath practices and burnout reduction among knowledge workers. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 26(4), 564-576.
Pew Research Center. (2018). Religion’s relationship to happiness, civic engagement and health around the world. https://www.pewresearch.org
Smith, C., & Hill, J. P. (2019). Religious giving and the good life: Research on tithing and well-being. Oxford University Press.
Waltke, B. K. (2010). Proverbs: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Eerdmans.
(English Standard Version). (2001). The Holy Bible. Crossway.
