Sunday, October 23, 2016

The Surrender to Awe

UV 2102/10000 The Surrender to Awe

I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.
Psalm 139 v 14

We are both created to be vulnerable as well as awesome. Our vulnerabilities cause us to be in awe of the amazing grace and power of the Creator. Our breath can be taken away in an instant, our spirits summoned in a moment by the sovereign Lord. Our bodies are made wonderfully. Every super specialist studying and working on every human organ or even part of the organ like the brain, the heart, the eye, the ear, the nervous system, the bones, the kidneys, the lungs, the teeth, the mouth or the intestines is in a constant state of wonder at how the particular organ was formed and how it functions. The geneticist would wonder at how such a large volume of specific instructions about our structure, the unique individual colour of skin, eyes, hair are written into the DNA of our cells well ahead of time. The scale, the diversity, the detail of creation takes away our breath. Each cell, tissue or organ is capable of functioning well lifelong and yet, without a moment’s notice can malfunction or cease to function. If we like Job stop in our tracks and just consider the awesomeness of God’s genius, the infinite love demonstrated once in creation, then in redemption and in thousands of marvellous acts, works and mercies in our lives, we would not question His love or His wisdom or doubt His faithfulness. We will entrust or surrender ourselves to the knowledge that He knows what is best for us. As for us, we only know enough to wonder at His great love and power, His great mercy and goodness. We only know enough to be grateful and trusting His will for our lives. We only know enough to understand that we need unction or anointing or the pouring of divine favour in all of our functions.


The soul of every human person knows very well that he or she is created in the image of the Creator, to know Him, to know like Him, to love Him, to love like Him, to think about Him, to think like Him, to feel like Him, to create like Him, to speak like Him, to act like Him to be like Him. The soul of every person bears the imprimatur of God. The soul of every person longs for re-union with the Creator. The soul of every person knows that he or she will return to the Creator. The soul of every person longs for the salvation prepared for him or her by the Creator in His new and wonderful role as Redeemer. But the same soul when it loses the fear of God, loses the sense of vulnerability or dependence on the Creator-Redeemer lives in denial of these truths and tendencies. The soul has the capacity of creating its own make believe world based on assumptions.

A door is useless but for the hinges that connect it to the frame of the threshold. Similarly, without the hinges of faith, our minds and our souls become unhinged, unconnected with the Creator. Our minds are both in possession of tremendous potential for good as well as for harm. It needs a door that lets in only what is good for the soul and to let out what is harmful or not truthful or beneficial for our being. A person who realizes the awesome power, amazing love, immense faith and responsibility that the Lord of life has invested in him will always have praise for the Creator in his every thought and feeling. He would live a praise-worthy or God –worthy life. Every thought, word and action would be an act of praise and worship, out of both reverence and love or that mixed feeling of awe and gratitude at what God has wrought for us in creating us in His image and in forgiving us and restoring us to His image through His son Jesus. He first formed us fearfully and wonderfully, He then informed us faithfully and inspirationally and finally, He transformed us completely and eternally. We owe Him a triple debt that we will never be able to repay both in this lifetime and the next. The benefits we have in Him are extensive, too awesome to comprehend, too wonderful for words, too deep for emotions, too numerous to list out. Once we appreciate how little we know, how much God both knows and cares for us, we will like the psalmist make a commitment to day-long from sunrise to sunset to sunrise, week-long from Sunday to Saturday, month-long from January to December, life-long surrender to our awe and love of God.

Prateep V Philip

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