140. The reason no one is reformed by thinking of God and pleading for help in a state of emergency is that this is a state of compulsion, so as soon as we return to a state of freedom we return to our former state when we rarely if ever thought about God. It is different for people who feared God in their former, free state.
"Fearing God" means fearing to offend him, and sinning is offending him. This really comes from love rather than from fear. If we love others, are we not afraid of hurting them? The more we love them, the greater the fear. Without this fear our love is insipid, only skin deep. It occupies our thoughts only, and not our intentions.
"States of emergency" mean states when hope is threatened by danger, as happens in battles, duels, shipwrecks, falls, and fires; the sudden, threatened loss of wealth or of employment and its prestige; and the like. Thinking about God in these circumstances comes from ourselves, not from God. Our minds are then virtually imprisoned in our bodies and therefore are not in freedom, which means they lack rationality as well; and without these there is no possibility of reformation.
