Proverbs 15:16
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Better is little with the fear of the LORD than great treasure and trouble therewith.
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Get your priorities right! Solomon, who tried everything life can offer, compared things for us, so we can avoid perplexity and the pain of wrong priorities. What is better - being poor with the fear of the LORD, or being rich without it? The answer is simple! Make the fear of the LORD most important in your life, for it has great reward and will save you from trouble. In other words, "Godliness with contentment is great gain" (I Tim 6:6).
Who cares what's in the bank, if you know the living God and His Son Jesus Christ? It does not matter what you are eating or wearing, or where you live! The fear of the LORD is a gift from heaven in your soul, for the world has none (Rom 3:18). Many thousands of martyrs burned slowly and painfully at the stake with great hope and peace, for their hearts were filled with the fear of the LORD. They would not bow to any man, confess any heresy, nor defraud their Savior or His scriptures of even one jot or tittle of glory.
What did Solomon conclude after testing every possible means for human happiness and purpose in life? Read it: "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man" (Eccl 12:13). There should be no questions in your mind. This is the most important thing for you to find and keep.
This is no servile fear of miserable anxiety and debilitating intimidation - this is the awestruck reverence and overwhelming affection for the blessed and glorious God that fills the soul with confident joy! It leads to angry hatred for sin and passionate craving for holiness. It causes sober trembling before His blessed word and eager desire to learn more. It leads to a life of godliness and love with fruit the world can never bear.
The real issue here is the fruit of fearing God - godly living in truth and wisdom. Note the contrast with "trouble." And compare these similar statements: "Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues without right" (16:8). "Better is the poor that walketh in his uprightness, than he that is perverse in his ways, though he be rich" (28:6). "A little that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked" (Ps 37:16).
Fearing God will bring peace and joy, confidence and contentment, and all the blessings of heaven (10:22; Ps 112:1-3; 115:13; 128:1-6; 147:11; 145:19). Guaranteed! Why would you want anything else? Treasure by itself is vanity and vexation of spirit, as Ecclesiastes describes in detail; but it is even more so with the trouble that comes from not fearing the Lord (12:21; 19:23). Even poverty can be okay, if you fear the Lord. If all this is true, and it is; then great care must be used to marry and live with one fearing the LORD (31:30).
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