Gracious And Compassionate
Psalms 145:8-9 (NIVUK) —
‘The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love. The Lord is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made.’
If you could describe yourself in one word, what would it be? I don’t know about you, but I find answering that question extremely difficult! I feel that, even on my best days, you could describe me with a different word from one minute to the next.
Luckily, we know how to describe God because he has revealed that to us in his Word. One of the words most consistently used to describe God in the Bible is compassionate. In fact, our verse today is the most repeated and quoted verse in the Bible - Exodus 34:6-7. God describes himself as ‘the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness’. We see this description referenced all across the Old Testament.**
The fact that this phrase is repeated so often, presents God as someone whose default posture to us is one of care and understanding, rather than being distant or judgemental. John Mark Comer writes: ‘When God describes himself, he doesn’t start with how powerful he is or how he knows everything there is to know or how he’s been around since before time and space and there’s no one else like him in the universe. That’s all true, but apparently, to God, it’s not the most important thing. When God describes himself, he starts with his name. Then he talks about what we call 'character'. He’s compassionate and gracious; he’s slow to anger; he’s abounding in love and faithfulness, and on down the list.’*
Not only that, but Psalm 145 tells us that God has compassion on all he has made. Regardless of where we’ve been, what we’ve done or how we feel, we can know that God is compassionate towards us and eager for us to come to him.
Reflect - What do you imagine God’s default feeling towards you to be? What would you do differently if you truly and deeply believed that God’s primary posture towards you is one of grace and compassion?
*John Mark Comer, God Has a Name, 2017.
**2 Kings 13:22-23, Joel 2:13, Psalm 106:44-45 are just a few examples!