Who is Like the LORD Our God?

 

Back in June, I was thinking about the portion of scripture we call The Beatitudes. I’m still thinking about that, but from a different angle. I’m ever so slowly going through the Psalms using Kay Arthur’s guide, Praising God Through Prayer and Worship. I have come to Psalm 113, where the writer calls on hearers to praise God for his greatness and his love. Verses 5 and 6 say this:

Who is like the Lord our God,
Who dwells on high,
Who humbles Himself to behold
The things that are in the heavens and in the earth?

Though God is great and mighty, he pays attention to us here on earth, to all our prayers and the details of our many lives. This in itself is astonishing and really beyond my comprehension. But the next verses of the psalm tell us that God “raises the poor out of the dust and lifts the needy out of the ash heap.” That’s nice, right? We might do the same. But what does God do then? He places them “with princes, with the princes of his people.”

This is too much. What would poor people have in common with princes? They wouldn’t even know how to act! Such might be my logic. I might reason, I don’t mind helping the poor, but I don’t want to embarrass them or make them feel out of place. God, however, so often does the unexpected, the bizarre, even. He sent his own son—the King of Kings—to be born in a stable.

All through scripture, we see glimpses of God’s tendency to elevate those we would call lowly. Think about Rahab; Ruth. Isaiah records God’s reminder that his thoughts and his ways are vastly different from ours (55:8 and 9), and we see it in the Beatitudes as well. Where we see failure, God makes a way. We see poor and pitiful; he sees an opportunity. We see a sinner; God sees someone who needs love.

We in Christian circles are in danger of becoming so comfortable and snug up in our clean and neat worlds that we forget the needs of those around us. The more I read scripture, the more I see that God wants to transform my thoughts and then my actions.

So what? What can we do? How are thoughts and actions transformed? One step at a time, I think. I adjust my attitude to respect and honor every person as an individual made in God’s likeness. I view the lowly and the sinner as being just as worthy as I am. (Which is to say, really, not at all, as Jesus is the only truly worthy one. But you get the idea.)

I am asking God to do this for all of us so that the world around us will see people who behave as Jesus did, people who love and respect our fellow humans regardless of their moral failings, political affiliation, or social status.

 

--Sherry Poff