Week 20 Psalm 138
By definition there’s a huge difference between the Lord and me. And one result is that there’s a gigantic distance between us. But when David says though the Lord is great, he cares for the humble, but he keeps his distance from the proud that’s a tip-off that distance is dynamic.
Knowing that the Lord’s proximity isn’t fixed and static is useful information to have. The Lord isn’t equidistant from every single one of us. Arrogance has a distancing effect and so the Lord keeps the proud at arms-length. By contrast humility narrows the gap.
Proximity is a dependent variable. The personal space between the Lord and a) a proud person and b) a humble person works in a kind of inverse way. The standard distance between the Lord and people is stretched by pride. But humility reduces the space.
This raises a practical question. What if a guy feels proud of himself (maybe he’s talented popular good-looking & successful)? What if he’s thinking: how do I feel less proud? Unfortunately David doesn’t give advice on the How-To question.
His big point is: the Lord is great. That’s the fundamental thing. If I think that the Lord is genuinely great – way greater than me for instance – then that’s my starter-step in the direction of closing-the-gap. By contrast if I think that the Lord isn’t so great then that’ll be an important distance-extending decision that I get to make.
Note: quote from Psalm 138:6 (NLT)