From Mary Kassian’s Knowing God by Name:

To know God is to know fear. The fear of God is a heart-pounding knee-trembling, spine-tingling, shuddering recognition that God is infinitely more good and powerful and important than me. It means that I live and think and act and speak with a keen awareness that He is the Creator and I am the creature; He is holy and I am not; He is wise and I am a fool; He is powerful and I am weak; He is ruler and I am servant; He is self-sufficient and I am utterly dependent.

To fear God means to be ever-aware of His all-pervasive presence, conscious of my absolute need for Him, mindful of my responsibility to follow His way, determined to obey Him, cautious of offending Him, and overwhelmed in amazement and gratitude at His incredible goodness and grace. As the early twentieth-century philosopher Rudolf Otto said, ‘It is the emotion of the creature, submerged and overwhelmed by its own nothingness in contrast to that which is supreme above all creatures.'”