“Because your steadfast love is better than life,
my lips will praise you.”
~Psalm 63:3 (NRSV).
More important than all things is the Sovereign worth of God. There is nothing of actuality that can or does come into our lives that overrides this... nothing.
We’re readily fooled that there are more important things, however. That is Satan’s role. Satan is making life both easier and harder for us. He is positioning life askew for us so we see it from an unbalanced perspective. The world reinforces this lack of balance. Our own sinful desires further convolute the ‘majesty’ of the problem.
God – Above All
The key assault that crushes these three—1) Satan’s thrones, dominions, powers and principalities, 2) the world, and 3) our selfish desires—is holding God’s worth highest and above all. It is our most basic and most powerful key.
Above the death of a loved one is God.
Above the pain and ill-health we experience is God.
Above the pleasures of ‘a good life’ is God.
Above time is God.
Above thought of the future, or the hurt of the past, is God.
Crushing Evil Powers in One Giant Swoop
Every moment of our lives, and especially the harder and easier ones, we’re given opportunities to simply turn (repent) toward, or return to, the truth of God. But our typical angle is away.
God’s will for our lives is a direct path. The Lord is the direction of our focus.
As we notice life starting to skew from the midline of God’s direct will for our lives, opportunities present to right-align and justify our approach, so we’re crushing these things in God’s holy and omnipotent name.
God has allowed for this, remember. The commands of God are central to this. They don’t exist for the Lord’s satisfaction entirely. They exist as a spiritual survival kit so we can negotiate life as we were always intended to. They exist for our own protection.
What’s More Important...
God’s love is better than life. It’s better than anything. There is nothing created that is better. God—who is love—is better than life.
As we test this out over the actual functioning of our lives—even when it makes absolutely no sense to us—we will find that God is utterly faithful in this.
At every snare, both easy and hard, throw the worth of God at it.
© 2010 S. J. Wickham.
Acknowledgement: must go to John Piper’s short message titled, Magnify the Worth of God in Suffering, which is available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_bhyt4eSMY
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