"Let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire." (Hebrews 12:28-29)

"Reverence" is a "deep respect and veneration for some thing, place, or person regarded as having a sacred or exalted character" (Oxford English Dictionary). Reverence comes from a root which means to watch out for, guard, protect, cover; in particular it has the sense of to watch with religious regard (The Origins of English Words). The Hebrew word that we translate into reverence means to be afraid, to be frightened; to revere, to respect, to be awesome. Depending on the context, this fear relates to terror and fright. In other contexts, it relates to honor, respect and awe, as in "the fear of the Lord" (Strong's Concordance).

"Reverence may be defined as a profound respect mingled with love and awe. Other words that add to our understanding of reverence include gratitude, honor, veneration and admiration. The root word revere also implies an element of fear. Thus, reverence might be understood to mean an attitude of profound respect and love with a desire to honor and show gratitude, with a fear of breaking faith or offending" (Elder M. Russell Ballard, Ensign, May 1998).

One of the most telling signs of the general deterioration of our society is the almost constant decline in reverence. President Howard W. Hunter taught us, "In the process of moral decline, reverence is one of the first virtues to disappear, and there should be serious concern about that loss in our times. There are wide areas of our society from which the spirit of prayer and reverence and worship has vanished. Men and women in many circles are clever, interesting, or brilliant, but they lack one crucial element in a complete life. They do not look up. Unfortunately, we sometimes find this lack of reverence even within the church. Occasionally we visit too loudly, enter and leave meetings too disrespectfully in what should be an hour of prayer and purifying worship. Reverence is the atmosphere of heaven" (Ensign, November 1977).

In a certain respect, reverence is the opposite of noise. President Boyd K. Packer teaches us, "For the past several years we have watched patterns of reverence and irreverence in the church. While many are to be highly commended, we are drifting. We have reason to be deeply concerned. The world grows increasingly noisy. This trend to more noise, more excitement, more contention, less restraint, less dignity, less formality is not coincidental nor innocent nor harmless. Irreverence suits the purposes of the adversary by obstructing the delicate channels of revelation in both mind and spirit" (Ensign, November 1991).

More on reverence next week.

Joseph A. Cannon is editor of the Deseret News.

E-MAIL: cannon@desnews.com