I'll jump in here with my two cents in response to both raytri and David.
The Hebrew "hary" is most often translated into "fear". It has a great deal more meaning than that and I have also seen it translated into "obey". In the instance of "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom", the truest (IMO) translation would be inclusive of fear, awe, respect and reverence. Reverence and respect would hopefully lead to obedience. Therein lies the wisdom. God shows himself to those who seek to obey Him. Not in the literal sense, but irrefutable to the believer nonetheless.
Mathew 17: 14-20
14When they came to the crowd, a man approached Jesus and knelt before him. 15"Lord, have mercy on my son," he said. "He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. 16I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him." 17"O unbelieving and perverse generation," Jesus replied, "how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me." 18Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed from that moment.
19Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, "Why couldn't we drive it out?"
20He replied, "Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."[a]
Faith comes from the Greek word "pistiv" meaning assurance or conviction. That's where it gets a little tricky. It's one thing to think of taking a "leap of faith" in the English sense of the word, quite another to leap with conviction. How do you get to be certain of something when you need to be certain of it before you can really be certain? In my case, it seemed like the right thing to do. Honestly, I don't remember what led me to choose to believe. I do know that I did not choose based on fear. I'd love to tell you a tale of great enlightenment caused me to believe, but that came some time later.