Praise for God’s awesomeness
by Charles Bertelsmeier
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Sing the praises of the Lord, you his faithful people; praise his holy name. For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favour lasts a lifetime; weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning (Psalm 30:4,5).
Read Psalm 30
Psalm 30 contains King David’s thanks and praise to God for delivering him from an unidentified life-threatening episode in his life. This episode may be related to some failure on David’s part since he refers to God’s anger. There are a few recorded episodes in the Bible where David’s actions were clearly against God’s will: pride, adultery and murder.
When confronted with the realities of his actions, David entrusted himself to God’s mercy each time. God forgave David, but he didn’t take away the consequences of David’s actions. David had to live with these consequences, but didn’t lose his close relationship with God.
David wants the whole congregation in the temple to join in praising the awesomeness of God for the way he deals with his people in justice and mercy.
God’s aim in dealing with us is not punishment but healing and restoration to a close relationship with him. When we lose our way, God, in his love for us, doesn’t just let us wander off, getting more lost, but he works to help us see our mistakes and lead us back to him. His motivation is his deep love for us. This is something we really struggle to understand – that Jesus would love us so much that he was prepared to suffer a humiliating death to take from us the guilt of our failures and restore us to being his brothers and sisters.
So, of course, we should be thanking and praising our God for what he has done for us – exuberantly.
Heavenly Father, thank you for not letting us get away with wandering away from you. Thank you for drawing us back to you for healing and restoration. We praise you for your awesomeness. Amen.
Charles is a retired engineer who has worked on communications projects for the air force, army and navy. He lives in retirement in the outer north-western suburbs of Sydney with his wife, Diane. They have four children and eight grandchildren, all of whom they love spending time with. He keeps himself busy looking after their pot plants and the community vegetable garden, researching his family history and volunteering in the community and at LifeWay Lutheran Church.
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