I would make a bad god.
I don’t mean that if I constructed a god, it would be bad, although, now that I think about it, I’m sure I wouldn’t be able to construct a very good god. I mean, if I were actually a god, I wouldn’t be a good one.
I’m certain I’d want to do all the right things, but I’m also sure it wouldn’t take long for me to become selfish, petty, and judgmental. I know this because when I try to extrapolate the small amount of power and wealth I currently have to an infinite level, I know I’d build myself some pretty cool castles, drive the sweetest cars, and generally keep the undesirable elements of the universe out of my sight. And to be honest, if you had the privilege of living near me you would probably enjoy life pretty well too. But the number of people that would get the invite to come live in my holy compound would be quite small. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t start out that way, but given that I’m not perfect, I’m pretty sure the cloak of absolute power would quite rapidly corrupt any good intentions I might have. And if somehow, people were prone to write and sing songs about my greatness, I’m pretty sure they would all be about my power and wealth. There would be no songs, or very few, written about my graciousness. The first thing to come to mind would be my power and how it was used to make my life a safe and comfortable one.
Now, before you judge me too harshly for this, ask yourself if you would be very different. I mean no offense when I say that I’m pretty sure we all would eventually fall into some version of a selfish god if we had absolute power. This is why I find Psalm 113 so intriguing.
Psalm 113 is the first of six psalms specifically focused on praising the Lord, and as the first verse in this series of psalms, its theme is an unlikely one. Psalm 113 begins with a call to praise God always and forever, from the rising of the sun to its setting, and it also states how much higher than this universe he is and that even the heavens and earth are far below his gaze. But the reason the psalmist calls us to praise him is not his power or his position but it is his love for those in the lowest of circumstances.
I think if I were to make one adjustment to Rembrandt’s famous painting The Return of the Prodigal Son I would have the father lifting the son’s face up to meet his own. I love that the father is embracing the son and I love that the painting celebrates the lost son’s return. But I think the most powerful aspect of the story is how the son was elevated to the position he had lost: that of the father’s son.
This is how God works. We, all of us, are his lost children who have wandered away from him in the garden. We lost our position and we grovel in the dirt, looking for anything that will fill the emptiness. Sadly, most of us forget that is what we are doing because we have found a nice house to live in or a nice job to pay for nice things, but let’s be honest, like the prodigal son we are all searching for the next corn husk.
The power of God, his greatness, lies in the fact that due to his great love he comes to us in our need, lifts us up from the dirt and grime of our lives, places us with princes, and gives us a home, and this should not come as a surprise to us. Scripture is full of God doing the very same thing. Sure, he kicked us out of the garden and he judges the proud quite harshly, but his love is constant in its mercy and grace. He continually seeks out the lost and lonely, he finds the low and dirty, he holds the hurting and homeless, he does all of this because we who were made in his image have fallen away and his desire is to redeem, not to judge. His desire is that we all would regain our place in the garden and finally become what we were created to be: sons and daughters of God.
Contrast this, if you will, with some classic human approaches to making everyone the same. Instead of trying to elevate everyone to a high level, it is easier to knock down those on the top. Certainly, many at the top are corrupt and prone to being a bad “god,” but the solution to disparity is not to take things away from everyone so as to put us all in the dirt and grime. The solution is to help those in the dirt and grime find their way out of the dirt and grime. The poor are not made better by making everyone else poor, they are made better by elevating them to their proper place: a valuable and fully functioning member of the human race.
This is what God does for us and this is where God wants to take us. God wants to redeem us from the muck and grime of our sinful lives and take us back to where we were before and to remake us into who we were before. God wants us to fully become his children, made in his image and then reside with him for eternity. This is what a good God does with his absolute power, and this is why we praise him.
