I want my soul to rise up. I read about a book written by a graduate of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School who went into apologetics and then became an atheist. My stomach knots when I read of these things. Sometimes it is tempting to believe we live in a material universe ruled by cause and effect. Sometimes it is tempting to look at the universe and think that we can know nothing of its purposes, or that it has no purpose. Sometimes Sartre’s nausea or Nietzsche’s will to power seem like an appropriate response. However great the mystery, though, I believe that the LORD made known his ways to Moses. Although my days are like grass, an eternal love is with me because I fear him.
Psalm 103
- What aspects of himself does David call to praise the LORD’s holy name?
- What does God do with sin and disease?
- How does God deal with sin and iniquity?
- If sin is a travesty worthy of tortuous death, how has God lavished mercy on us all?
- How do we praise God for saving us from sin that has lost its seriousness in the 21st century?
Going Deeper
Observation
- To which people did God make known his ways?
- In what different ways is God’s love described?
- Upon whom does the LORD have compassion?
- What are man’s days like?
- What is to praise God?
Interpretation
- Did God reveal himself to Israel in ways that he doesn’t reveal himself now?
- How does Israel’s history reveal God’s love when they kill so many people?
- How can a person healthily love someone that they fear?
- How can God have everlasting love for people who live a short time?
- How do all of God’s works praise him if they are not all sentient?
Application
- Does your experience of God match what you have been told? What can you do to seek a deeper experience of God (i.e. How should your soul rise up?)?
- Do you think that God’s love is revealed as much in the Old Testament as in the New?
- Do you love God and fear him?
- I have a skull in my office to remind me I am going to die. What could you do to remember that your life is like grass?
- How could you further understand how all creation praises God and join in?
Plymothian 
Interestingly, every time I doubt, I find that I simply cannot let go of my God. No matter how many objections come up to my mind, I could never relent my faith.How, then, am I to think of those who apparently had genuine conversions and then fell away, never to live for God again? I’m not prepared to say that their conversions were not genuine, although my own experience tells me that that is simply impossible for me (and others testify the same).And, besides that, if God loves everyone, how come he hasn’t grabbed everyone’s heart like He has mine?Oh, the logical impossibilities of following our good and loving God.Oh, the eternal cognitive dissonances of loving the Creator.I hate the Calvinist-Arminian debate. As far as that is concerned, I think that, probably (and wonderfully illogically) everyone who holds the following two things is correct in how they think about these things (except, perhaps, the limits of the atonement–I will always be staunchly Arminian on that point [nor do I think that 5-point Calvinists are damned nonChristians]).1) God loves everyone. There is no molecule in this universe that God has not dedicated Himself to.2) God has called me (meaning the person who belives these two things) to be His.