Let’s make today simpler: Perhaps it can be a more reflective, and contemplative section of your week. Together, let’s turn our full focus to the infinite and personal Supreme Being of great Love and Mercy.
I hope you are encouraged to carefully read and reflect on this Psalm for a few minutes. It is a song of praise and worship to God, Creator of all. Give your heart over to God, today. My brothers and sisters, our matchless God is worthy of our praise.
(Any reflective thoughts you’d like to share are very welcome.) Be blessed today.
Praise the LORD from the heavens;
praise him in the heights above. 2 Praise him, all his angels;
praise him, all his heavenly hosts. 3 Praise him, sun and moon;
praise him, all you shining stars. 4 Praise him, you highest heavens
and you waters above the skies.
5 Let them praise the name of the LORD,
for at his command they were created, 6 and he established them for ever and ever—
he issued a decree that will never pass away.
7 Praise the LORD from the earth,
you great sea creatures and all ocean depths, 8 lightning and hail, snow and clouds,
stormy winds that do his bidding, 9 you mountains and all hills,
fruit trees and all cedars, 10 wild animals and all cattle,
small creatures and flying birds, 11 kings of the earth and all nations,
you princes and all rulers on earth, 12 young men and women,
old men and children.
13 Let them praise the name of the LORD,
for his name alone is exalted;
his splendor is above the earth and the heavens. 14 And he has raised up for his people a horn,[b]
the praise of all his faithful servants,
of Israel, the people close to his heart.
Don’t be tempted to …ahem… peg Jael as the Biblical forerunner of the fierce “Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling”. She was a nobody who cared for sheep and endured the harsh elements.
As a tent dweller of the Kenite clan, she was riffraff to the nth degree. (The spiffy clothing you may see her depicted in is just wishful thinking. A bath would be hard to come by, let alone silk fineries, and dainty hairstyling.)
So-NEVER doubt this, Jael is one shrewd and formidable female; and she clobbers an expert of war, with her own violence, as a part of God’s plan.
She’s sharp, very sharp.
Here lies the mighty Warrior, Sisera…almost pinned down.
Could this be one instance (of many) where a Bible story may effect an impressionable mind?
Perhaps envision the scene following a Bible study at a female penitentiary … “Yo, ladies, are you ready to get your Jael on!? Wooo…” Okay, maybe not. But, I can totally see a Bible inspired video game for Christian families….rated T for Teen (of course)… that includes this scene. The object would be to get in the most spike poundings before the warrior wakes up. That’s completely obvious, right?
Incidentally, this story also proves how brilliantly somniferous warm milk can be. Note to self.
Most importantly, this story begs us to root for Jael, and everyone like her. She’s an impoverished foreigner. A diminutive herding woman. And she triumphs in a crucial battle to save a whole nation. Underdog doesn’t begin to describe her.
This isn’t just an astonishing battle tale, or reversal of fortune story, it’s a message of hope for all of us up against the odds. God gives us the strength to peg and conquer our obstacles. God’s character is shown in this and the many underdog stories in the Bible.
Literarily unheard of, this story is like no other. No other ancient literature in the world included women very much, let alone wrote them up as full- blown heroines. But, God captures his heart for us within this story of an unlikely woman who saves an entire people group from destruction.
Remember this:
Undoubtably, you have God’s camaraderie when the odds are against you, or when your foes or circumstance seems too great to overcome.
God has mercy for your “type,” and it is his joy to help you prevail. Keep your hope in the Lord, the Almighty King.
Do you ever feel like an underdog?
What would you like to pin and conquer?
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A most famous depiction of God the Father by Michelangelo
Here, just the Father’s beard could wipe out planet Earth
A Family of God chat. Dove is like a weird pet, and Jesus still shoulders the cross
Flying Father God hovers in parallel maneuver with Spirit Dove. Gosh-Nice jammies for Jesus, Mary! Just rub it in why don’t you.
I have a body, you have a body, and…..
we’ve gotten used to God (the Father) having one too. “The Man Upstairs” We’ve heard this dysphemism, right?
This almighty person* of the three-in-one Godhead, who is the center of Reality, is the One Jesus invited us to respectfully, personally, and literally, address as “Dad” in our prayers.
Yep, this is probably why the male depictions crop up. And, it’s not surprising that since God has been around for quite a while (okay. That is hyperbole….it’s been forever and ever) that he would be depicted as elderly. There’s the white hair, wrinkles, and, of course mad skillz at wisdom etched in the contours of his face. He’s usually shown as robed (relaxed fit clothing , perhaps), light-skinned (really huge shock, right? Thanks, Rome.), and bearded. There’s a verse about Jesus having the hair in his beard ripped out, but God the Father having a beard, well, maybe he’s just too busy to shave? Did famous Greek Stoics look like this, so it was a jumping off point for artists? God, so many questions…
AND-Yes, curiously the depictions appear very much like Father Christmas (Santa Claus). If you think about that bit for too long, it will start to get creepy; especially with those holiday songs that include lines, “he sees you when your sleeping…” and such.
Here’s the part where I pop the fantasy bubble, like it or not.
God is not a man.
God does not have a body.
“He” isn’t “upstairs”.
That deity in art, and in our minds, looks like a human, and acts as such. It’s human created. The street term sadly, I’m sorry to say, this is, an idol. There, I said it.
More importantly to our spiritual growth, those types of pictures of God are bitty and short-changed. God does not have body parts, or biology to make God one or another gender. Jesus, and others may say “he” for God because it is a term of relationship. It is a gift of grace, goodness, and love toward us (as children) that no human father can accomplish perfectly well. But God can. God displays qualities most often distinctive to both genders respectively, and in perfection and holiness.
God is everywhere. Let’s just try to wrap our brains around this a bit, because we are not at all everywhere. I’ll just repeat it: God is everywhere. This is one big benefit a Spirit Being has, someone like “the man upstairs” is only, well, upstairs. And sometimes downstairs, but not both at the same time. This is where Deism is straight out against the Trinitarian percepts of the Bible. Deism, separates God from his creation: God-The Watchmaker. Distant, Aloof. It’s just dead wrong, because Jesus called him Father, and invited us to do so, too.
To perform an act of God in the flesh (in human form) Perfect God needed a body. So, yes, God incarnated a real human body to heal and redeem humans, body and spirit.
That incarnation: Jesus, the Anointed One.
The Holy Spirit, also a full member of the three-in-one Godhead (not just a pale bird in flight above a placid, pasty, bearded white guy often seen in artistic depictions), is the full power of God that is with us who receive God and Jesus. This Being, works on us to teach us, and transform us into Jesus’ character, what we call “Christ-likeness”.
In a recent survey, Two out of Three members of the Trinity prefer being body-free.
From Jesus, written by John in Chapter 4. Verse 23 “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”
*(person here does not signify a human person (i.e. human individual), but instead, one with a personality. personality |ˌpərsəˈnalitē|noun ( pl. -ties)1 the combination of characteristics or qualities that form an individual’s distinctive character). In mystic tradition there is some issue there too.
Now it’s your turn.
Like me, have you ever thought of God the Father as a man? Or an old man in the sky?
Or a Being with a body?
How do you image or imagine God?
Which artistic depiction of God (shown above) do you find the strangest, or most fascinating?
