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His Greatness is Unsearchable |
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Written by Michael R. Walker
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Monday, 11 August 2008 17:56 |
Today's "morning Psalm" is a justly famous one, sometimes called "The Praise of David," for it exalts God with some of the most memorable phrases in the Psalms, such as "The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love."
Prayer is an exercise in humility and surrender before the face of God, and to praise God is to exalt him with a bit of imagination, or beyond what we could imagine, as the Psalm opens by confessing "Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; his greatness is unsearchable" (v. 3). Any exaltation of God worthy of the name rises above the limited categories our minds possess. We cannot possess the greatness of God; we exalt God in his greatness. As Calvin puts it, David "intimates that we only praise God aright when we are filled and overwhelmed with an ecstatic admiration of the immensity of his power. This admiration will form the fountain from which our just praises of him will proceed, according the measure of our capacity."
Yet our praise is not an abstract exercise, the praise of an idea or animated by some unknowable characteristic of God. The praise of God's greatness is also specific, concrete, real to our experience: "on your wondrous works, I will meditate. The might of your awesome deeds shall be proclaimed" (v. 5-6). God is exalted in his immeasurable greatness by giving thanks for our experience of all of God's particular blessings. Calvin: "the greatness of God is not that which lies concealed in his mysterious essence, and in subtle disputation upon which, to the neglect of his works, many have been chargeable with mere trifling, for true religion demands practical not speculative knowledge."
Such praise should be echoed in our hearts beyond those times of abundance, when our hearts are naturally moved to spontaneously exalt the goodness of God. Praising God for his greatness seen in his wondrous works shapes our experience of life as much as it is a response to that experience. The "abundant goodness" of God (v. 7) is never separated from particular times and events of God's activity, but it does transcend them, as we are reminded: "One generation shall laud your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts" (v. 4). The chorus of the faithful throughout the ages raises our vision above our particular context and beyond our particular time, sending us back into the present moment with eyes ready to interpret our reality differently.
Calvin: "Having said that he would speak of, or meditate upon God’s works, (for the Hebrew word, אשיחה, asichah, as we have elsewhere seen, may be rendered either way,) he transfers his discourse to others, intimating, that there will always be some in the world to declare the righteousness, goodness, and wisdom of God, and that his divine excellencies are worthy of being sounded, with universal consent, by every tongue."
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