ChristianWeek

A man once came up to me and asked if I could tell him the time. I checked my watch and told him—to which he replied, “Awesome!” A “thank you” would have sufficed, I said to myself. What could possibly be “awesome” about telling someone the time?

And yet I keep hearing this mantra ad nauseam—everything, no matter how trivial, is said to be “awesome.” “You’re awesome!” is a compliment someone I know throws around like confetti to just about anyone he meets. “Awesome” is also how the moderator of a meeting I recently attended greeted every completed item of business.

I know, I know it’s just a common expression, like “groovy” or “cool” from another era. But it annoys me nonetheless.

Because I work in words all the time, I have developed over the years a deep respect for the proper use of language. As a writer and journalist, I’ve learned to be very careful in my choice of words; as a chronicler of newsworthy events and other people’s points of view, it is critical that I convey as accurately as possible what I have seen and heard. If I mischaracterize an event or misquote someone, then I have failed in my responsibility to be a fair and truthful communicator.

Of course, language is constantly evolving. It wasn’t too long ago, for example, that “access” was a noun, as in, “He was given access to the file.” Now it’s become a verb, as in, “He accessed the file.” (How do I know this is now considered to be grammatically correct? Because my computer’s spellchecker didn’t flag “accessed” as an error.)

But “awesome” is different, because to me it invokes God. One dictionary defines “awe” as “an emotion variously combining dread, veneration and wonder that is inspired by authority or by the sacred or sublime,” and “awesome” as being “expressive of awe” or “inspiring awe.”

The very thought of God ought to fill us with a sense of awe and reverence. That is why the psalmist could exclaim, “How awesome is the Lord Most High, the great King over all the earth!” (Psalm 47:2)—just one example of many in the Bible. That is why we sing “Our God is an awesome God” and “O Lord my God! When I in awesome wonder...”

To my perhaps overly sensitive ears, to declare just about anything and anyone “awesome” borders on blasphemy. For non-Christians, referring to the Lord in a dismissive or disrespectful manner can be as natural as breathing. They don’t know any better. Nor do they know any better than to bestow upon people and things an attribute that rightly belongs to God and to no one and nothing else.

But Christians do know better, or at least they should. God alone is “awesome”—and whatever is “awesome” in Creation is due solely to His handiwork, which ought to give us even more reason to give Him praise.

Jesus was conscientious in his use of words. When the young ruler addressed Him as “good teacher,” He asked him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good—except God alone” (Mark 10: 17-18). Some commentators think he was trying to flatter Jesus, since even the rabbis taught that only God was “good.”

We too should be conscientious in our use of words. I may be many things, but there is nothing about me that justly deserves to be called “awesome.”