Opus 2026-235: Morning Crutches

To be honest, every morning does not start with me leaping out of bed with praises and songs bursting from my lips.  Often, usually, I am in a state of neutrality.  I am somewhere between mildly positive and vaguely negative.  Because I don’t want to drift I try to find habits that will get me moving in the right direction.

Today in my usual routine I was reading Psalm 33.  As I read I was splashed with views of the God I worship.  It was a joyful picture.  After reading the entire chapter and looking over some of the terminology, I found myself thinking about how Yahweh contrasts with other gods of the world.  I will confess I have not studied those gods with any depth but I have been listening to discussions of them all my life.  They have a different set of adjectives.

The adjectives I would use to describe the gods of Greece, Scandanavia, nomads of the steppes, Africa and such start with powerful, that is a given, but from there the choices go downhill.  Can you say narcissistic?  How about capricious?  Childish also fits the bill.  They definitely tend to be immoral by the standards of the Bible.

I would assume there are some deep thinkers in their followers who go beyond that but that summarizes my knowledge.  When I say “deep thinkers” I mean people like Marcus Aurelius who wrote a famous book on Philosophy, Meditations. Being deep does not mean being consistent.  Depending on where you read, he sounds in one place like a traditional Roman with the fickle gods and at another place like a Bhuddist who believes in reincarnation.  Some places he writes like a monotheist and even sound like a Christian.  You can find anything you want, kind of like Alice’s Restaurant.

When I think of Yahweh as He is revealed in the OT and in the person of Jesus I think of a whole different set of words.  Yes, you have power but from there you follow a different branch.  In the OT a key concept if loving kindness and mercy.  The NT has agape, love.  Love is defined with such words as patience and kindness.  These are not momentary weaknesses like the Roman gods but basic parts of His personhood.

I rejoice that I live in a society that was at one time based on those values.  Whether the future will continue that way or we will descend into the world of Conan the Barbarian remains to be seen.  Either way I expect that the real, living God will not change and His promises to the faithful remnant will stay in effect.

homo unius libri