Psalm 145:1-7 – Celebrating Christ's Character in Depth and Detail

From Psalm 145 –

1
I will extol You, my God, O King;
And I will bless Your name forever and ever.
2
Every day I will bless You,
And I will praise Your name forever and ever.
3
Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised;
And His greatness is unsearchable.

4
One generation shall praise Your works to another,
And shall declare Your mighty acts.
5
I will meditate on the glorious splendor of Your majesty,
And on Your wondrous works.
6
Men shall speak of the might of Your awesome acts,
And I will declare Your greatness.
7
They shall utter the memory of Your great goodness,
And shall sing of Your righteousness.

“While it is good that we seek to know the Holy One," celebrates Dietrich Bonhoeffer in the seasonally appropriate God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas, "it is probably not so good to presume that we ever complete the task.” ― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

I think the scope of Bonhoeffer's statement matches that of Psalm 145:1-7. The psalmist there would agree that knowing God for all He is is not a task a mortal can complete. Extolling His Name will take forever (verse one) and even then His greatness is "unsearchable" (verse three.)

Yet the other half of Bonhoeffer's sentiment is also in evidence. That we won't complete the task, that God's Nature is declared unsearchable does not keep us from trumpeting what we experience of Him. The generation behind us learns of God's qualities and His interventions in part, says verse four, because one generation declares His works to another. That Divine character the theologians talk about was in evidence here, and here, and here, in my life.

The resolve to spin theology out in narrative form, to tell Who God is based on what He did Once upon a time in our lives, is perfectly suited to captivating the young minds behind us. They crave story more than abstraction. They want to know what God HAS done in the lives of people they already relate to more than they want to know what He could do in theory. We tell on, then, the ways in which we have seen Him stretch our expectations and our sense of intimacy.

Yet the framing of big theology evident in these verses is also a blessing. Without it, we can make a restrictive and prideful pattern out of the ways God has acted in our lives. We can become so content with the culprits with which He has blessed us in the here and now that we begin to lose our craving for what He will show us of Himself that this world and these bodies can't withstand.

Even as we recount the specifics of the ways in which He has allowed us to search for what His character means in our lives, we know there's more. We have room left to wonder. This wonder we would pass on is more powerful than any particular anecdote.

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