One can think nothing greater than to think about God. Unfathomable, rich. Our life cannot surpass our knowledge and understanding of God. All begins with God. We must begin in the right place. Without understanding the nature, character, and actions of God, we cannot grasp worship. We cannot appreciate and experience genuine community. We miss the essential nature of the penitent heart that God accepts.
Our typical approach to Bible study urges us to make lists of God’s qualities. Words like omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence roll off the tongues of seminary students. Love, grace, mercy, justice, holiness. Creator, Sustainer, Savior. Great lists–but largely incapable of generating changed lives in today’s world. The Old Testament has lists of characteristics, but when God got ready to reveal himself in the New Covenant, he sent a living example. We can learn more about God by reading the gospels than the Old Testament prophets. How do we understand God in the trenches of life, in the down and dirty tasks of daily living?
The Psalmist portrays God in word pictures. Who is God? What is God like?
When I have to make hard choices in life, I choose God. He alone is my inheritance. I look around me and marvel that I am blessed with the most pleasant portions of life (16:5-6). I rest in peace, eat and am satisfied, drink deeply, and find constant renewal because he guides me and protects me (23:1-3). I do not live in fear for myself or my loved ones, confident that he hides me and shelters me from trouble, covers me with his presence, and lifts me up. Where else can I find such constant refuge? What other fortress shelters me when life buffets me and the enemies surround? My security is to dwell in the shadow of my God and to know his steadfast love (27:5; 36:7; 71:3; 91:1). Life promises satisfaction, but the longings continue. Only God fills my life with satisfying goodness, quenching my hunger and thirst for things with the satisfaction of genuine fulness (107:9).
God blesses me with every need, he gives me the desires of my heart; he fulfills his purpose for me. Why do I not delight in him more than I do (37:4; 57:2)? I sing joyfully when I contemplate his provision and protection (63:7). He does not act because I deserve his goodness, but because he is good, forgiving, abundantly loving. I know the lists–abounding in steadfast love, merciful, gracious, slow to anger (86:5; 103:8), but what catches my attention is that he acts for my well being, accomplishing everything that matters to me and orchestrating the world to move toward his eternal purpose for me. What catches my attention is that he does not forsake me, leave me, or give up on me (138:8).
“God, help us to see you in our midst, mighty to save. Help us to heard your glad songs of rejoicing over us. Help us to feel the quietness of your love strokes upon us. Help us to see what you see as you celebrate our presence in your presence with exultation. Surely we can see more than the Old Testament prophets who spoke confidently of future blessings, because you have shown us the way, the truth, and the life, through Jesus, Amen.” (Zephaniah 3:17).