Tuesday 6 March

I have this morbid habit of hearing a good song and then loudly proclaiming to my husband, ‘you can play that at my funeral!’  A song can says something about the way I am, how I love, what life is to me, which makes me want it to be used to define and remember me.  Maybe it’s this reaction to music that made me decide to have a birth song for our daughter – one we’ll always play on her birthday.  For her we chose ‘Here Comes the Sun’ by The Beetles (because she broke our literal and figurative long, cold, lonely winter).

In 2 Chronicles 7 we see the birth of the temple – it’s completion and the celebration of the people.  And we see a song being sung to record the moment in verse 3, it reads –

“When all the people of Israel saw the fire coming down and the glorious presence of the LORD filling the Temple, they fell face down on the ground and worshiped and praised the LORD, saying,

   “He is good!

      His faithful love endures forever!””

- 2 Chronicles 7 v 3

What kind of God is our God?  For in this moment it’s his love, his faithfulness and goodness that the people sing of.  It is not the whole story of our God – He goes on in this chapter to tell Solomon that He is holy, requiring holiness.  That He is faithful, requiring loyalty.  That He is King, requiring obedience.  But it isn’t this that seems to define him to the Israelites. In this moment it’s his love, his faithfulness and goodness that the people sing of.

In Exodus 34, God passes before Moses and tells him his name, Yahweh, and says He is,

“The God of compassion and mercy!

   I am slow to anger

      and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness.” (v 6).

Again, I know this isn’t the whole story but this is the first thing he tells Moses! And it is what, despite a history of being disciplined, the people remember. 

I wonder, is this my God?  Are these the words I would sing to Him?  Or have I lost sight (through religion or past church hurts or even bad teaching) of His great love for me?  For as Romans 5 v 8 tells us:

“…God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.”