Holy Is the Lord

We stand and lift up our hands
For the joy of the Lord is our strength

... and my only strength, sometimes. Last night I felt musically weak, but even in the midst of the messy harmonies, I couldn't help but notice that the lyrics were saying there was more to it than the music, anyway.

We bow down and worship Him now
How great, how awesome is He!

I read something kind of bleak yesterday about a preacher - Bellamy, his last name was, a disciple of Jonathan Edwards, that preached in such a way that, as one congregation member put it, made God "SO GREAT!" The bleakness was that his preaching was frightening, of the soul-searing, insanity-producing brand of Calvinism, and that the author of what I was reading said that such preaching gave worshippers a definite purpose/goal/end - an intense, sublimely powerful God. Well, that made me think. See, I don't think we create God, and I think that emphasizing something about Him so that people can worship Him could in some sense be manipulative. However - He is sublimely powerful and awesome. If worship is an experience of the sublime, it could be because it is an experience of God.

I've also been reading about the watering down of theology in the late victorian period in the U.S. - overemphasizing the love part of God. Why do these two extremes seem to be at odds? In beautiful music, we can say, "We bow down and worship Him now - how great, how awesome is He!"

I don't know the answers to these things. That is perhaps why I love to sing His praises - for a moment, I acknowledge and exult in what I know to be true.