God of Every Star, and Every Individual Scar
From Psalm 147 – 2 The Lord builds up Jerusalem; He gathers together the outcasts of Israel. 3 He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. 4 He counts the number of the stars; he calls them all by name. 5 great is our Lord, and mighty in power; His understanding is infinite.
My predilection for 1990's television holds a particularly fond space for Doogie Houser, M.D. I would never claim the intellectual distance between the teenage doctor and his peers for my own. Still, I especially appreciated the way he processed a particularly complicated adolescence and distilled its lessons in writing.
But even Doogie could be obtuse. In one episode, he made much of his efficiency in processing patients when compared to his physician father's more deliberate approach. With all the words signified by a perfect SAT score to choose from, Doogie even trumpeted that his father's practice was a crop duster compared to his own advanced technological approach.
I consider this when appreciating the Great Physician for Who He is according to the patient's perspective in Psalm 147:2-5. At first I think the poet is so excited in His God that he is grasping for attributes and stitching them together with a certain haphazard glee. But my insistence on sniffing out continuity and comparisons and my Spurgeonesque willingness to get too much out of scriptural races rather than too little won't allow me to leave this songster's exhortations alone.
Examined again, verse four is no longer an astronomical outlier amid kinder, gentler descriptions. The psalmist describes a God big enough to keep count of the number and position of the stars, and nestles this theology of scale among humbler contemplations for comparison's sake. God is the Doogie of Doogies, efficient, orderly, advanced beyond the most impressive quest pushing the frontiers of our rudimentary knowledge of distant stars. And yet…
And yet, the God of the galaxies comes near to build or rebuild a city conducive to prosperity, enjoyment, and growth on a human scale (Psalm 147:2). He planted the garden of Eden for this, and neither Adam's fall for subsequent rebellions have slaked His desire to see people flourish in community. He, after all, as Earthly cities rise and fall according to the intermittent folly of their leaders and citizens, always has the New Jerusalem in mind which He will bring down perfected for the eternal thriving of His own.
And yet, His infinite understanding and mighty power include the ability to calibrate His Presence which can span star systems to provide consolation among the bruises of a single human heart. Right before looking up and contemplating the vastness of God's knowledge and power in Psalm 147:4, our psalmist compares this to, what can we call it but a pediatrician's bedside manner, or a counselor's unconditional positive regard?
Dr. Doogie may breeze through addressing individual hurts with the curt detachment of one with a whole caseload in mind, but in the Great Physician, we have every variety of healing. He stops. He listens. In every way we can be broken, or wound ourselves with our remembrances, He can and He does provide healing and wholeness.
My predilection for 1990's television holds a particularly fond space for Doogie Houser, M.D. I would never claim the intellectual distance between the teenage doctor and his peers for my own. Still, I especially appreciated the way he processed a particularly complicated adolescence and distilled its lessons in writing.
But even Doogie could be obtuse. In one episode, he made much of his efficiency in processing patients when compared to his physician father's more deliberate approach. With all the words signified by a perfect SAT score to choose from, Doogie even trumpeted that his father's practice was a crop duster compared to his own advanced technological approach.
I consider this when appreciating the Great Physician for Who He is according to the patient's perspective in Psalm 147:2-5. At first I think the poet is so excited in His God that he is grasping for attributes and stitching them together with a certain haphazard glee. But my insistence on sniffing out continuity and comparisons and my Spurgeonesque willingness to get too much out of scriptural races rather than too little won't allow me to leave this songster's exhortations alone.
Examined again, verse four is no longer an astronomical outlier amid kinder, gentler descriptions. The psalmist describes a God big enough to keep count of the number and position of the stars, and nestles this theology of scale among humbler contemplations for comparison's sake. God is the Doogie of Doogies, efficient, orderly, advanced beyond the most impressive quest pushing the frontiers of our rudimentary knowledge of distant stars. And yet…
And yet, the God of the galaxies comes near to build or rebuild a city conducive to prosperity, enjoyment, and growth on a human scale (Psalm 147:2). He planted the garden of Eden for this, and neither Adam's fall for subsequent rebellions have slaked His desire to see people flourish in community. He, after all, as Earthly cities rise and fall according to the intermittent folly of their leaders and citizens, always has the New Jerusalem in mind which He will bring down perfected for the eternal thriving of His own.
And yet, His infinite understanding and mighty power include the ability to calibrate His Presence which can span star systems to provide consolation among the bruises of a single human heart. Right before looking up and contemplating the vastness of God's knowledge and power in Psalm 147:4, our psalmist compares this to, what can we call it but a pediatrician's bedside manner, or a counselor's unconditional positive regard?
Dr. Doogie may breeze through addressing individual hurts with the curt detachment of one with a whole caseload in mind, but in the Great Physician, we have every variety of healing. He stops. He listens. In every way we can be broken, or wound ourselves with our remembrances, He can and He does provide healing and wholeness.
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