Well, I love Psalm 145. I guess I've said that for many Psalms; this one has been particularly helpful for me. I would title Psalm 145, "Living for Something Bigger than You."
There's something that you and I tend to do; we tend to make life all about us. We tend to shrink our lives down to the small confines of our wants, our needs, and our feelings. We tend to put ourselves in the center and make life all about us. It's a 'me-istic' way of living (no, that's not a word--I made it up!)
Somehow, everything becomes about how it affects us. Everything is about our wants, our goals, our plans, our emotions. And the fact of the matter is, self-focus, self-interest, 'me-ism,' never produces a happy life. It never produces healthy relationships. It never makes you thankful. It never produces love for God and worship of God. And so, Psalm 145 sits in the Psalms to confront our 'me-ism' with the truth that we were created to live for something vastly bigger than ourselves.
I will extol you, my God and King,
and bless your name forever and ever.
Every day I will bless you
and praise your name forever and ever.
Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised,
and his greatness is unsearchable.
One generation shall commend your works to another,
and shall declare your mighty acts.
On the glorious splendor of your majesty,
and on your wondrous works, I will meditate.
They shall speak of the might of your awesome deeds,
and I will declare your greatness.
They shall pour forth the fame of your abundant goodness
and shall sing aloud of your righteousness.
(And then the rest of the Psalm is this awesome riff on the glory of God.)
I love the way the NIV translated this--it says, "His greatness no one can fathom." That word is itself a word picture. A fathom is a nautical measurement of depth. If something is unfathomable, it means you can dig down deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper and you never reach its depth! That's the greatness of God! His glory is so great we will spend a billion years in eternity researching the glory of God and not get to the bottom of it.
Now, if there's One in the universe of that kind of glory, then that's what our living should be about. We reduce life down to us and when we do that, we're just a bunch of glory thieves, stealing God's glory for our own.
Psalm 145 clearly tells us why we've been placed on earth: we've been placed on earth to be personally blown away by the glory of God. Because we're blown away by the glory of God, we live for that glory and not our own. And we can't help but pass that picture of the glory of God down to the next generation.
There's no gift you can give to your children better than to have them growingly blown away, overwhelmed, mystified, in wonder and awe, at God's glory. And he's created a world that reveals his glory so you have plenty of opportunities to point to his glory.
We were meant not to live for the glory of our wants, our needs, and our feelings, but to live for the glorious glory of God, and for that we need rescuing grace.
Questions for Personal Reflection or Group Discussion
1. As you think about your day-to-day life, routines, habits, thought patterns, etc., how have you made life all about you? If your friends and family took an honest inventory of your life, would they characterize you as a person who is supremely focused on your own wants, goals, plans, and emotions?
2. How has your self-focused way of living (to any degree that it might be) made you miserable? How has it affected your relationships with others? How has it produced a spirit of complaint in your life? How has it boiled down your life to a 'me-istic' way of living?
3. In what ways have you been personally blown away by the glory of God? How have you personally been amazed by God? Who have you talked to about the ways you've been amazed by him? Would your children describe you as someone who is blown away by God and his goodness? In what ways have you helped your children to see an increasingly overwhelmed and mystified wonder and awe of God?
Conversation Prompts to Use with Children
For Younger Children:
• What makes God so amazing? Why do you think it's important to live for God and not for ourselves? Have you ever met someone who is really self-centered? What was their personality like?
• How have you seen me be self-centered in the past? How have you been self-centered before? Does being self-centered make others happy? Why do you think God wants us to be focused on him instead of ourselves?
For Older Children:
• Have you ever looked at the personality of someone who you know is fairly self-centered and wondered if they are truly joyful? Why do you think self-centered people are miserable people to be around? Why do you think that kind of person is miserable themselves?
• How have you seen me be self-centered in the past? How have you been self-centered before? Does being self-centered make others around you happy? Why do you think God wants us to be focused on him instead of ourselves? Why is God better to be focused on in life instead of ourselves? How can we help each other become more and more in awe of God?
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