Psalm 145:8,9 “Him”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

⁸Gracious and compassionate [is] the LORD, slow to anger and great of love.

⁹Good [is] the LORD to all, and His compassions [are] upon the all of His doings.

Finally, something exploded in my brain! These two simple verses are utterly profound. My head is spinning.

Verse 8 is very similar to the Lord’s declaration about Himself in Exodus 34:6, “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.” There begins the “profound.”

As I’m studying Psalm 145, I’m slowing reading through a book by A.W. Tozer, which is itself utterly amazing. One of his chapters is entitled “Gazing at God.” First of all, I was blessed to read of someone who has also found that he can “see” God. I have known that for some time and can honestly say that I enjoy looking into the Lord’s eyes all day every day. I don’t know that I’ve ever told that to anyone but my wife, figuring they’ll just think I’m crazy.

But I do. It’s not a matter of seeing a face, per se, but rather the same spiritual experience we all have when we actually look someone else “in the eye.” You can look at their eyes but it is something infinitely deeper and personal (and I believe spiritual) that happens when you actually look them in the eyes. That is what I mean that I don’t “see” a face. I’m not looking at the Lord’s face. I’m not looking at His eyes. I’m looking in His eyes. I’m experiencing the same spiritual reality of looking in His eyes without the necessity of having eyes to look at.

But Tozer takes it a step further. He encourages people to see the Lord in His beauty. As I read that, I realized I did not. I see Him, but not necessarily His beauty. So I asked Him to show me His beauty, to help me “see” it. Now, of course, I am already convinced He is beautiful. My whole life He’s been showering Me with His kindness and I can safely say, anyone who knows Jesus would quickly agree they know Him as beautiful. But I couldn’t say I “see” His beauty, though I do “see” Him. His beauty was more something I knew about Him – kind of like looking at His eyes, not in them.

I want to inject that I have known for years that He is beautiful specifically because to me my wife is beautiful utterly beyond words. Next month we will have been married 37 years and I still am utterly moonstruck by how beautiful she is. As far as I am concerned, the Lord gathered up everything that is beautiful in this world and brought it all together in my wonderful bride. Just looking at her is rapturous to me. But, what I realized long ago is that all of that amazing beauty is only borrowed from the Lord. She can be beautiful because He is. We’re made in His image and any beauty we see anywhere is simply a reflection of His. And, of course, earthly beauty can only be some very, very small expression of His infinite beauty. What will it be like to actually see Him? Earthly beauty (like Joan’s) is mesmerizing. What will it be like to see His??? It’s a good thing Heaven is forever – that’s probably how long we’ll need to just stand there mesmerized by His beauty!

But back to my experience – I was struggling as usual with this Psalm, feeling like I just don’t “get it.” The words are amazing but I just didn’t “get them.” Tozer had encouraged people to get somewhere alone and just concentrate on the Lord. I tried to do that but nothing happened, then I told myself, “I don’t agree with this.” I don’t believe the Lord is hard to find. I know lots of people write about all the great lengths they go to in order to get alone, fast, pray, etc., etc., etc., and that’s all well and good, but, again, I do not believe He’s like that. He doesn’t make Himself hard to find. “In Him we live and move and have our being.” He is the very air we breathe. So, I just went on about my life, knowing somehow he would answer my prayer.

And He did. This morning when I came back to these verses, they finally “hit” me. This is it: “The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and great in love.” I suddenly realized, this is the God I “see.” This is who He is. If we would know Him, if we would desire to know about Him, if we would desire to understand who He really is, you can sum it all up in these simple words, “The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and great in love.”

Is that not “beautiful?” Would you not agree that, in those few simple words, are the truths we humans most desperately need to know, to believe, to embrace, to live, …to breathe??? We have a God who is what we most desperately need. He is all our wildest dreams come true!

The Hebrew words themselves are beautiful. He is gracious. The word expresses the idea of a superior showing kindness to an inferior, with no regard whatsoever to whether that inferior deserves it. Then the Psalm tells us He is compassionate. It is a word derived from the same word for a woman’s womb. The idea is the same very strong emotional love a woman feels for the baby in her womb – God loves you and me the same way. It isn’t just a fact that He loves us. He loves us with the deepest possible love straight out of the depths of His heart. Then it says He is “great in love.” Hallelujah for us fallen sinners. He doesn’t just love, He is great in love! And “greater love hath no man than this, than that he should lay down his life for his friends.” And “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us!”

Grace, compassion, love. That is who He is. I have known it was true for a long time, but I’ve never “seen” it before! Somehow, I do now. When we look into His eyes, there He is, filled with grace and compassion and love!

And what does it go on to say? “The Lord is good to all and His tender compassions are over all His works.” He is good to all. To all. His tender compassions are over all His works. This is truly amazing. The Lord filled the earth with sunshine. It is all around us. It shines on everything, whether it be a gorgeous vista of the Rocky Mountains or a garbage dump – still His sunshine sparkles on it all. So is His goodness. It fills all His creation just like His sunshine. The most vile, disgusting creatures live enjoying His goodness. The most violent, cruel, godless people live enjoying His goodness. Though they do not deserve it at all and, in fact, force Him in a million ways to withhold the goodness He would have shown them, yet they live and breathe, plant crops and harvest them, get married, have children, enjoy times of happiness – all because they literally swim in the ocean of God’s goodness.

Oh, may we not fail to enjoy that goodness. May He grant us repentance for all the sins in us which might frustrate that goodness from reaching our hearts. Somehow may the joy of knowing Him so fill us that it shines out of our hearts and into the lives of the people around us. “Beholding His image” may we be “changed into that same image, from glory unto glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord!”