GOD IS: Part Two

GOD IS: Part Two

There’s something about putting actual words to what I love about God which has really encouraged me lately. I’m not usually one to blame tough times on spiritual attacks, I figure that’s just life, but the past few months especially have felt very much like an attack. Every time I sit down to write or spend time with God, something happens. I get sick, my kids get sick, a meeting I have to be at gets scheduled at that exact time. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

Where usually I consider Bible verses or pray through the day as I think of it, lately I’ve been using them as weapons. Claiming them when life gets me down. Reciting them when I feel as if I'm losing the battle. Putting up that post last week – GOD IS: Part One for those who missed it – felt like an absolute victory. Not only had I published the post I'd been trying unsuccessfully to find time to write for the past couple of months but every word of it was my personal testimony of God's goodness. 

So, to continue on, here’s Part Two of my alphabet of attributes I love about God.

F – FAR

I know, God is near and incredibly personal. I love that. But I also love that he’s far away, far enough to not get caught up in my little problems. When I’m standing in front of my wardrobe, assuring myself that deciding what to wear is not worth a panic attack while feeling like I’m heading toward exactly that, I love knowing that God’s not panicking too. He’s bigger than that. Far enough away to know that it really doesn’t matter. He sees the big picture while I’m stressing about the tiny little details.

Isaiah 55:8

“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.

G – GOOD

G was easy to come up with because it’s something I remind myself of over and over and over every single day. God is good. Life is messy. You only have to watch a few minutes of the news each day to see that. People dying, being abused, suffering for simply being born in a particular place, mass shootings, businesses going under, inoperable cancers – the list goes on and on. And it’s not just the things that make the news. There are just as many struggles closer to home – friends and kids struggling, sickness, exhaustion, that crazy five o’clock hour each afternoon when any semblance of control I think I have goes out the window along with the screams of my toddler furious at me for not letting him play with knives or climb up on the tv stand…

Life is messy. God is good.

Psalm 116:1-7

I love the Lord because he hears my voice
    and my prayer for mercy.
Because he bends down to listen,
    I will pray as long as I have breath!
Death wrapped its ropes around me;
    the terrors of the grave overtook me.
    I saw only trouble and sorrow.
Then I called on the name of the Lord:
    “Please, Lord, save me!”
How kind the Lord is! How good he is!
    So merciful, this God of ours!
The Lord protects those of childlike faith;
    I was facing death, and he saved me.
Let my soul be at rest again,
    for the Lord has been good to me.

H – HELPER

Life is tough. Some days more than others. There are days when I wake up in the morning and wonder – albeit because my arthritis is flaring up or because I’ve been up half the night with a baby – how I’m going to find the strength to get out of bed let alone through the day. And then I remember, I’m not alone. God is my helper. God is the one who will get me through minute by minute, hour by hour. Is he a crutch? Absolutely. I lean on him with every depleted bit of strength I have.

My strength, my courage, my hope, my resilience, my joy – every bit of it comes from God, my helper. The one who keeps me standing. God is my helper.  

Psalm 63:7-8

Because you are my helper,
    I sing for joy in the shadow of your wings.
I cling to you;
    your strong right hand holds me securely.

I – IRRESISTIBLE

God is irresistible. Utterly and completely irresistible. Believe me, I know. There was a time when I tried to ignore him. He’d let me down, or so I thought. Betrayed my trust and how does one recover from that? When your whole life is based on the premise that God is good and trustworthy and that is not only shaken but crushed, how do you go on? I did my best to ignore God and turn my back on him. I really tried. Stopped reading my Bible, stopped praying, refused to listen or believe that God was good.

It didn’t work. Six months later, I came to the realisation that I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t walk away from God because no one else had ever loved me like he did. No one else had ever accepted me so completely as he did. No one else had ever made me feel so beautiful. Never anywhere else but with God had I found such peace.

When you’ve known that peace beyond understanding, that completely unconditional and overwhelming love, that incredible goodness, it’s impossible to be satisfied with any less. Hard as I tried, I couldn’t stay away. God is irresistible.

Psalm 63:1

O God, you are my God;
    I earnestly search for you.
My soul thirsts for you;
    my whole body longs for you
in this parched and weary land
    where there is no water.

J – JUST

I like justice. I never realised how much until I was faced with a decision that simply wasn’t. The bad people got away with being bad and those who’d done nothing wrong were left to languish, simply for being alive. It wasn’t fair. It grated against me. I couldn’t find any way of being at peace with it. It just wasn’t fair.

Sadly, life often isn’t. But, God is. One day, justice will be served. Life will be put back to rights – the good being blessed and the bad being punished. Life will make sense again. Because God is just.

Psalm 73:16-17

I tried to understand why the wicked prosper.
    But what a difficult task it is!

 Then I went into your sanctuary, O God,
    and I finally understood the destiny of the wicked.

So, there you have it, my favourite attributes of God starting with the letters F to J. How about you? What would yours be?

Keep a look out next week for the next instalment, and feel free to check out Part One of the series if you missed it.

Until next time :)