Posts
Psalm 103 (New International Version)
8 The LORD is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love.
9 He will not always accuse,
nor will he harbor his anger forever;
10 he does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our iniquities.
11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;
12 as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
Today we continue to read Psalm 103. These five short verses overflow with an amazing concept: the God of the Universe loves us. Yesterday we made ourselves vulnerable and tried to be absolutely honest about our real thoughts and feelings towards God. Perhaps we got in touch with some of our inner-most sentiments that made us feel somewhat uncomfortable. And these verses tell us that we have nothing to fear. God loves us: truly, deeply, madly!
Take a few moments to read these verses slowly 12 times. That might seem excessive but this is an excessive concept and excessive language. All that we have done to disappoint God, others and ourselves has been forgiven. We are not a disappointment to God. As you read this over and over, imagine the passage as an ocean and allow yourself to fall into it. Let is wash over you. Submerge yourself in it. Acknowledge any cynical or negative thoughts and then simply dismiss them. Instead, submit to the inexorable love of God.
You could write these verses on a piece of paper and keep them with you all day. Read the verses to yourself every hour and say this simple prayer:
Lord, I receive your love. Amen.
Please add an entry to this blog to share any thoughts or reflections about today’s Lenten devotion.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
2nd Day of Lent
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
Why does it feel like every great passage of the bible has one line like this:
so great is his love for those who fear him
That gets stuck in my throat? Of course God is powerful, but why should I fear him?
around reading number 8 or 9 i thought the same thing. i wonder if it's one of those natural disconnects that we, as people who live in 2009 have with people who lived in a more ancient world. to everyone who didn't belive in / worship the LORD, they believed in / worshipped an alternative. an idol. these idols were bad mammer jammers, so to speak. and people interracted with them on the basis of fear. because the people believed that they were real, they feared the consequences of what would happen if they did not pay homage to their idol. so they'd do all the sacrifices and rituals in hopes to appease their god. they would build their lives around trying to please their god(s), because they feared them.
i wonder if that's just the language that the ancients used to say that they acknowledged their belief that their God, the LORD, the compassionate one was real. and it made it all the more wonderful that the One that they "feared" / believed was real / based their lives around pleasing was "compassionate" and "abounding in love."
this is a long post, but that's what came to my mind.
more than God wanting you to fear Him, perhaps He just wants you to believe He is real, in all His love and wildness and mystery, and then build your life around Him.
Interesting question Todd. As I read this line over and over I am struck by the tension between the two words Love and Fear. All my life I've been taught to just replace the word "Respect" for fear in passages like this. It would be interesting know the word in the original language...some things get lost in translation. As I ponder the word fear I think of my children's fear of the dark when they were little. They feared what they could not see or completely understand. There is so much I do not understand about God. A mystery and wildness that does evoke fear in me! He doesn't fit neatly into any "box of understanding" that I would attempt to put him in. Maybe part of fear is realizing just how little we understand or know God.
Anyone else have any thoughts?
When I took the tour of Cape Canaveral in Florida I got to stand inside a Space Shuttle and standing there, I imagined what it would be like to go into space and explore. That was pretty scary and exciting. I think that's what it's like to fear God. This is something that's a lot bigger than me, smarter than me, and able to create the cosmos?! The wonder of it is that God doesn't want to lord it over us - so to speak - but wants to approach us with love and kindness.
This passage of Psalm 103 so beautiful and truly tells us about the true character of God: slow to anger, rich in love (that keeps no record of wrongs) and always wanting the best for us.
For those who are interested in looking up the Lexicon in reference to the word "fear", I did some searching on Parallel Bible and this is what they had to say about Psalm 103:11 -http://scripturetext.com/psalms/103-11.htm
So I definitely agree with that fact that God wants us to constantly be in awe of who He is and what he is doing in our lives and the world around us... and to be content with the mystery of faith.
I find all of the references to anger interesting. "slow to anger" "nor will he harbour his anger forever".
Maybe this is somehow related to the fact that other gods, people were worshipping at the time this was written, were often "angry".
Did Jesus ever address the idea that God could sometimes be angry?
If God is all loving, how can he harbor anger even for a moment?
We can live in such an "un-loving" world --- how incredible to be reminded of God's love. It's so big I can't even wrap my head around it.
Post a Comment