Awesome God!

 

Psalm 145:4  Common English Bible

One generation will praise your works to the next one,

    proclaiming your mighty acts.

I couldn’t seem settle to writing anything today.  None of the passages I read spoke to me.  Then a friend texted saying she was stuck halfway through writing her sermon for Sunday.  Somehow, I could relate.  LOL. We talked about a number of things relevant to her topic - Creation, specifically the sun, moon and stars.  And I said something like, “Look at how awesomely powerful God is, to create all of those amazing things, and yet he still cares about what happens to each one of us, and loves each one of us.” She liked it. I don’t know whether she will use it, but she liked it.

I think it is always good to remind ourselves of that - God’s immense power, and God’s love for humanity. We aren’t even his most powerful creature, but we are the one who is made in the image of God.  It is even more important that we don’t just remind ourselves, we need to tell our children.  

Teach all the children about God’s power and God’s love.  Teach them God created the world and everything in it, and the sun, moon and stars.  Teach them that Jesus loves them - red and yellow, black and white, all are precious is his sight.  But don’t teach them what too many of us learned - that God only loves you when you are good.  God isn’t Santa Claus, to make a list of the naughty children and withhold gifts from them.  No, God gives us all gifts, and then hopes we will use them wisely.  God doesn’t punish children for bad things their parents did. God doesn’t send a natural disaster to destroy an entire city because of something politicians did.  God is not so petty and mean spirited.

God is love.  This does not mean that God only does nice things that we will like, because part of love is justice, and justice is treating everyone fairly, and with mercy.  Sometimes love means saying No. 

God is not a butler, to fulfill our every prayer in just the way we want it.  Even though we may not get the thing or result that we prayed for, know that God did hear it, and answered it.  We just might not like the answer, because sometimes the answer is “No”, and sometimes the answer is “Not right now.”

Teach the children about God’s mighty works, so when they are grown they will know that God is good, even when some of God’s followers are not.  God is good, even when the church is not. And then they will teach their children.

Awesome God, I can’t even imagine the kind of power it takes to create a sun, to set the courses of the planets around it, and then to create not just that sun but an untold number of others and even more planets and moons around them.  But you did that, and then you created us, and you loved us.  Thank you God, for helping me to know that you are love, and that you are in my life today and every day.  Amen