Sing over me

"The LORD your God is with you, 
       the Mighty Warrior who saves. 
       He will take great delight in you; 
       in his love he will no longer rebuke you, 
       but will rejoice over you with singing." - Zephaniah 3:17

This is an amazing passage that encourages me and points me straight to God. Read over it again and focus in on the bigness of God. I like to keep it in nice and simple words; big, other, above, set apart. For all of you intellectuals we like to call it the transcendence of God. In Psalm 8:1 we read, "LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens." We see this picture all over the Bible, we have 100s of songs written about it, God is altogether more wonderful than we can understand. He is transcendent. 

But as we look at the rest of that verse, we see that God takes delight in us. For all the readers of 'the Shack' God is especially fond of each one of us.  This is the idea that God is mindful of us. In His fully transcendent and other nature, He "comes down to visit sinful humans and address their problems and needs" (Wiersbe). This shows his great immanence. For all those who are bad with large and scary words, God loves us enough to sit with us in our crap and carry us through. He is the dearest friend who will not abandon you. 

But, as I read last line in Zeph, I can't help it! I have to smile! Read it again...  Are you kidding me? The great God of the universe cares and loves me so much that He rejoices over me with singing! That is amazing. We often take it for granted that God cares for us and knows the hairs on our heads... we have all heard the stories and seen the flannel-graphs, but we fail to grasp it. I know that we don't understand because if we did, our lives would be drastically changed. Think about it. I dare you. 

Here is the kicker. The word that was translated to 'rejoice', in its original context, would me better translated, dance. It is literally: Spinning and whirling around with shouts of joy. The automatic picture I get is of King David dancing in the streets in undignified worship. So, God Almighty sings and dances over us with absolute joy! This is of course after he has already saved us. 

Jared Anderson wrote a song about this amazing passage. The song is titled "Amazed." Listen to it and remember that God, although our minds will never comprehend his greatness, loves us.

Lord, I come in humility. Grateful for the truth in this passage, that you care for each one of us. We love you and proclaim your greatness. Father, fill us with your Spirit that we might proclaim your Son boldly. - Luke