February 8. Are you glad you are not God? A scribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples,

a scribe to the Lord, glory and strength, Psalm 967. Here's at least part of the experience

that the Psalmist is referring to when he says, a scribe, give to the Lord's strength.

What are we doing when we ascribe to the Lord's strength? First, by God's grace, we give attention

to God and see that he is strong. We give heed to his strength. Then we give our approval

to the greatness of his strength. We give due regard to its worth. We find his strength to be

wonderful, but what makes this wonder that we experience a giving kind of wonder,

give to the Lord's strength is that we are especially glad that the greatness of the strength

is his and not ours. We feel a profound fitness in the fact that he is infinitely strong,

and we are not. We love the fact that this is so. We do not envy God for his strength.

We are not covetous of his power. We are full of joy that all strength is his.

Everything in us rejoices to go out of ourselves and behold his power,

as if we had arrived at the celebration of the victory of a distance runner who had beaten us

in the race, and we found our greatest joy in admiring his strength rather than resenting our loss.

We find the deepest meaning in life when our hearts freely go out of ourselves to admire God's power

rather than turning inward to boast in our own, or even to think about our own.

We discover something overwhelming. It is profoundly satisfying not to be God,

but to give up all thoughts or desires to be God. In our giving heed to God's power,

there rises up in us a realization that God created the universe for this,

so that we could have the supremely satisfying experience of not being God,

but admiring the godness of God, the strength of God.

There settles over us a peaceful realization that admiration of the infinite is the final

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