“And"

The Lord woke me up this morning with thoughts about all the words that need help to better describe the God we serve.  For example: Not just love, but love and peace.

2Corinthians 13:11 

Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you.

Not just wisdom, but wisdom and understanding. Not just counsel, but counsel and might.

Isaiah 11:2 

And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD;

This kind of thing happens even in our songs… “God isn’t just merciful, He’s a “wonderful, merciful Savior.”  And of course, sometimes there are no adequate helper words to give a clearer picture of our God, so the best option left to us is to say it more than once.  For example, we all understand that "Holy.”  But his holiness is better understood when written three times.  God is holy, holy, holy.  Sometimes, there just needs to be an and.

And then I continued thinking about all the words that need “help” from the perfect adjective to give a better picture of who our God is.  He doesn’t just have mercy; God has “tender mercies.”  And then there are combinations of both in some passages.

Psalm 40:11 

Withhold not thou thy tender mercies from me, O LORD: let thy lovingkindness and thy truth continually preserve me.

In Psalm 40:11, we find another word that by itself isn’t sufficient.  The psalmist didn’t just pray, “let thy kindness preserve me.  He prayed, let thy lovingkindness continually preserve me.  And the word "combo" was still a bit lacking as a perfect description of who God is and what he has to offer.  So, the prayer request was for “tender mercies, lovingkindness, and truth.” 

Oh Lord, I know in my heart, there are not enough words in the universe to adequately describe your splendor, but thank you, on this winter morning, for your “grace and mercy” that fill my heart with hope.

-Joe

Let me leave you this morning with one of my favorite verses from the song, “Oh Love of God.”

Could we with ink the ocean fil

And were the skies of parchment made

Were every stalk on earth a quill

And every man a scribe by trade

To write the love of God above

Would drain the ocean dry

Nor could the scroll contain the whole

Though stretched from sky to sky