“But as for me, I will enter Your house through the abundance of Your steadfast love and mercy; I will worship . . . in reverent fear and awe of You.” Psalm 5:7 (AMP)
I love that verse. And I think the reason I love it so much is that I often come to the Lord empty. Empty-handed, like a beggar clad in filthy rags, and also empty down in my soul, with a painful longing to be satisfied, and yet the knowledge that I have absolutely nothing to offer in the exchange. There’s not a single, solitary reason He would want to let me enter His house. And yet. The Bible says I can enter through the abundance of His steadfast love and mercy.
I picture myself, this grubby pauper lifting a stained hand to knock on the door. But even before I can knock, the door is thrown open wide and my Father steps forward to greet me.
This relationship is a great mystery: how we can be loved with the familiarity of a family, totally secure knowing He is always with us and yet loved by a holy being who’s so very different from us. His ways are past finding out. He is high and lifted up. He is totally different—beyond our comprehension. Bono, the lead singer of U2, said: “The idea that there’s a force of love and logic behind the universe is overwhelming to start with . . . But the idea that that same love and logic would choose to describe itself as a baby born in . . . straw and poverty is genius, and brings me to my knees, literally. . . . I am just in awe of that. . . . It’s the thing that makes me a believer.”
When I come to the Lord, one thing He gives me in exchange for my emptiness is awe. An awe that someone like Him would come to earth in order to save someone like me. What a mystery. What a Savior!
Faith step: Embrace the mystery and the miracle of Your Savior today. Remember You are a pauper no more—but a child of the King.
