peace . love . joy

God is God and i am not. God is great and i am tiny. God is all-powerful and i am an ant.

This forced humility runs contrary to our self-promoting tendencies. Because of our ancestry in the Garden of Eden, we were born with the desire to gain the position that belongs to God and God alone. We want to take ourselves higher and bring God down lower.

In Genesis 3, Adam & Eve listened to the lie that they could be like God because they craved what belongs to God alone. In Genesis 11, man again sets out on a foolish plan to make a name for himself by building a tower "with its top in the heavens." In Romans 1 we learn of the propensity of every human heart to exchange God's truth for a lie and to worship the creature rather than the Creator.

Yes, in all of us is a self-centered bent to get me up and get God down.

Getting a proper view of God reverses that sinful inclination. When i see God as being above me, beyond me, highly exalted, over me, and totally separate from me, i am putting myself in a very good place - under His awesome Hand.

When i embrace God for who He is, then i properly understand who i am. When i know God's place, i can know my place.

That's what seeing God as He realy is - Holy, Sovereign, Separate - does for us. It puts everything and everyone in its rightful place.

God is so great, i am so small. And that's the way it's supposed to be. There's infinite relief in knowing where i really fit and who is completely in charge. It's God "who looks on the earth and it trembles, who touches the mountains and they smoke!" (Psalm 104:32). As the psalmist rightly assessed, "Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!" (Psalm 95:6)

~ excerp from "Our rightful place" by James Macdonald
(https://www.walkintheword.com/images/spread.pdf)