Monday, October 25, 2010

How Great Thou Art

Whom do we serve?
Who is this God we worship?

Chris Tomlin writes this: This is our God
He will wipe away your tears and return your
wasted years
This is our God
So call upon His Name
He is mighty to save
This is our God

A father to the orphan, a healer to the broken
This is our God
And he brings peace to our madness and comfort
in our sadness
This is our God
So call upon His Name
He is mighty to save
This is our God

Who is our God? Who is this living being we surrender to?

In the old hymn, How Great Thou Art, God is described this way:
When through the woods
And forest glades I wander
I hear the birds
Sing sweetly in the trees;
When I look down
From lofty mountain grandeur
And hear the brook
And feel the gentle breeze;
Then sings my soul,
My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art!
How great Thou art!
Then sings my soul,
My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art!


The prophet Isaiah wrote this: "No one has ever seen or heard of a God like you, who does such deeds for those who put their hope in him. You welcome those who find joy in doing what is right, those who remember how you want them to live."

God is God, greater than our greatest imagination says He is. God is life, and breath, and love, and those beautiful sunrises and breath-taking sunsets. The purple mountain majesty? God. The Lord says to Isaiah, "Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house, then, could you build for me."

He is laughter and He is tears. He is joy and He is discipline. He is the warmth of mercy in the morning, and He is cold, cold night. God is God, and with that comes power and majesty beyond our explanations and even our thankfulness. Out beyond the picket fences we build ourselves, God is waiting for us, waiting for us to worship and to bow in obedience. God is simply God.

Praise Him, praise Him for who he is as much as we praise Him for what He does. Paul wrote of who God is in the opening portion of his letter to the Romans: "Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can't see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being. So nobody has a good excuse. What happened was this: People knew God perfectly well, but when they didn't treat him like God, refusing to worship him, they trivialized themselves into silliness and confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction left in their lives. They pretended to know it all, but were illiterate regarding life. They traded the glory of God who holds the whole world in his hands for cheap figurines you can buy at any roadside stand."

Who is God? He is power and He is light. He is invisible and yet his power is seen daily in the falls of Niagra and the vistas of the Grand Canyon. We have no excuse for not worshiping him with all that we are. We need merely to open our eyes, allow our nose to do its God-ordained job, and feel the minutes as they pass.

Who is God? Beauty for ashes. Fragrance of joy for hint of failure. God is simply God.

How great Thou art.

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