Day Fifteen
”AND NOW, O GLORIOUS AND BLESSED GOD,”
Today’s Scripture Reading
Who has measured the waters in the palm of a hand
or gauged the heavens with a ruler
or scooped the earth’s dust up in a measuring cup
or weighed the mountains on a scale
and the hills in a balance?
Who directed the LORD’s spirit
and acted as God’s advisor?
Whom did he consult for enlightenment?
Who taught him the path of justice and knowledge
and explained to him the way of understanding?
Look, the nations are like a drop in a bucket,
and valued as dust on a scale.
Look, God weighs the islands like fine dust.
Lebanon doesn’t have enough fuel;
its animals aren’t enough for an entirely burned offering.
All the nations are like nothing before God.
They are viewed as less than nothing and emptiness.
So to whom will you equate God;
to what likeness will you compare him?
An idol? A craftsman pours it,
a metalworker covers it with gold,
and fashions silver chains.
The one who sets up an image chooses wood that won’t rot
and then seeks a skilled artisan
to set up an idol that won’t move.
Don’t you know? Haven’t you heard?
Wasn’t it announced to you from the beginning?
Haven’t you understood since the earth was founded?
God inhabits the earth’s horizon—
its inhabitants are like locusts—
stretches out the skies like a curtain
and spreads it out like a tent for dwelling.
God makes dignitaries useless
and the earth’s judges into nothing.
Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,
scarcely is their shoot rooted in the earth
when God breathes on them, and they dry up;
the windstorm carries them off like straw.
So to whom will you compare me,
and who is my equal? says the holy one.
Isaiah 40:12-25
Reflection
We are moving into the final part of the prayer. In doing so, we are shifting our attention away from ourselves—as we have laid claim to who we want to become—and to who we claim God is. We claim, of course, to be people who are willing to surrender and suffer, people who desire to honor God over self and even to being humbled. We also claim that we are people who are willing to do God’s great work in the world recklessly or wastefully, meaning without any care for outcome or result. We have told God through prayer that even if God were to dispose of our work, we’d still do it.
The words And now indicate turning toward a new idea or area of focus. Essentially, the words And now would be like saying, “Therefore.” So, it isn’t a stretch at all to think that what we are really saying when we say the words And now is something like, “With all that in mind” or “In summary of all that has been said” or “According to my previous declarations” or “Subsequent to all that I have expressed so far.” This turning toward a new area of focus by saying, “And now,” is meant to help us carry forward the preceding ideas, not turn away from them.
“O, glorious and blessed God” is a beautiful statement. It is a statement of designation. When we say, “O, glorious and blessed God,” we assign supremacy to God, acknowledging God’s reign and rule. We are also indicating our awareness that God is magnificent, full of wonder and mystery, unable to be truly fathomed, and worthy of celebration. We worship when we say, “O, glorious and blessed God.” It isn’t that we don’t worship when we say the entire prayer—we certainly do, as prayer is a robust form of worship. With these words, however, we take a moment, a singular and distinctive moment, to revere God and recognize God’s holiness and sacred divinity.
God is magnificent, full of wonder and mystery, unable to be truly fathomed, and worthy of celebration.
If you’ve ever studied the attributes of God, you know how important they are to Christians and our understanding of God and of our faithful worship of God. A baseline belief in God’s existence and trusting God’s existence for life is the foundation for building a robust relationship with God. We do not become who God intends for us to be without an understanding of who God is and what God is like. Jesus gives us a clear and compelling picture of who God is. In the life, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus (and all that takes place between those anchoring points), we see the express representation of God. For greater clarity, read these words from the writer of Hebrews:
In the past, God spoke through the prophets to our ancestors in many times and many ways. In these final days, though, he spoke to us through a Son. God made his Son the heir of everything and created the world through him. The Son is the light of God’s glory and the imprint of God’s being. He maintains everything with his powerful message. After he carried out the cleansing of people from their sins, he sat down at the right side of the highest majesty. And the Son became so much greater than the other messengers, such as angels, that he received a more important title than theirs.
Hebrews 1:1-4
Jesus is the language of God. This means, according to Hebrews, specifically verse 2, that God’s method for communicating who God is and what God is like to humans is the person of Jesus. God’s dialect with God’s creation is God Incarnate, Jesus.
We know what God is like from the Old Testament, as Hebrews says, “through the prophets to our ancestors,” and we know God by means of what is called “general revelation.” General revelation is God’s way of revealing God to humans through the physical universe and through human reasoning—all natural means. “Special revelation” is also how we are to understand God. Special revelation is the means that God uses to reveal God to us—means such as the Bible, God’s Word, and Jesus, God’s Son. When we pray, “O glorious and blessed God,” we are praying with the knowledge of God as God has chosen to reveal God to us.
There are, of course, many attributes of God. The four most commonly understood attributes of God among Christians, new and mature, are:
1.Omnibenevolence — God’s ability to remain wholly loving to all for all times
2.Omnipresence — God’s ability to be wholly present everywhere at all times
3.Omniscience — God’s ability to be wholly aware of all things at all times
4.Omnipotence — God’s ability to be wholly powerful over all things at all times
In summary, when we pray, “O, glorious and blessed God,” we are hallowing God’s name. Remember, “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name . . .”? This is what we are doing when we are declaring that we recognize all the attributes we associate with God in our thinking and our being. The truth of the matter is that we cannot pray all that we have previously prayed and not recognize God’s supremacy and incomparability. To neglect or avoid this crucial part of the prayer would be to devalue the entire prayer. Sure, we could choose to say words other than glorious or blessed and still be true to the spirit of the prayer. The particular words we choose are not as important as the action of pausing and taking the singular and distinctive moment in time to worship the Almighty God.
To worship God is to return to God what is due to God by responding from the transparency of our heart. When we pray the Wesley Covenant Prayer, we worship, of course. When we pray, “O, glorious and blessed God,” we reveal the symphony resonating in our hearts, minds, and souls.
Today’s Challenge:
YOU ARE
Write a prayer to God. Include in the prayer at least five attributes of God (grace, mercy, compassion, omnipresence, and so forth). Avoid asking God for anything (petition), so that you can fix your eyes on God and God’s majesty.
Personal Reflection
•Do my claims and my behaviors match?
•When others tell the story of me, would they say that I am humble? Why or why not?
Group Discussion
•What are your three favorite attributes of God and why?
•How do you define worship?
•Fill in the blank: God, I am most grateful for ______________.
•What would you say is the main idea of this part of the prayer?
Departing Prayer
God, you are majestic.
We praise your name.
We praise your holy name.
We praise your holy, all-powerful name.
We praise your holy, all-powerful, infinite name.
We praise your holy, all-powerful, infinite, ever-loving name.
Amen.