Day 11 - Wednesday, December 8
Title: HE HAS DONE GREAT THINGS
Scripture: Luke 1:49-50; Psalm 103:1-18

“For He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name. And His mercy is on those who fear Him from generation to generation.”

Bless the Lord, O my soul; And all that is within me, bless His holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits: Who forgives all your iniquities, Who heals all your diseases, Who redeems your life from destruction, Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies, Who satisfies your mouth with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

The Lord executes righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed. He made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the children of Israel. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in mercy. He will not always strive with us, nor will He keep His anger forever. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor punished us according to our iniquities

For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear Him. For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust.

As for man, his days are like grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourishes. For the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him, and His righteousness to children’s children, to such as keep His covenant, and to those who remember His commandments to do them.

Poetry:
To Live in the Mercy of God
by Denise Levertov

To lie back under the tallest
oldest trees. How far the stems
rise, rise
       before ribs of shelter
                                           open!

To live in the mercy of God. The complete
sentence too adequate, has no give.
Awe, not comfort. Stone, elbows of
stony wood beneath lenient
moss bed.

And awe suddenly
passing beyond itself. Becomes
a form of comfort.
                      Becomes the steady
air you glide on, arms
stretched like the wings of flying foxes.
To hear the multiple silence
of trees, the rainy
forest depths of their listening.

To float, upheld,
                 as salt water
                 would hold you,
                                        once you dared.

                          .

To live in the mercy of God.

To feel vibrate the enraptured

waterfall flinging itself
unabating down and down
                              to clenched fists of rock.
Swiftness of plunge,
hour after year after century,
                                                   O or Ah
uninterrupted, voice
many-stranded.
                              To breathe
spray. The smoke of it.
                              Arcs
of steelwhite foam, glissades
of fugitive jade barely perceptible. Such passion—
rage or joy?
                              Thus, not mild, not temperate,
God’s love for the world. Vast
flood of mercy
                      flung on resistance.
 

HE HAS DONE GREAT THINGS

It’s funny how context changes how you read something.

While deep in introspection Mary exclaims that a mighty God has done great things and his mercy is evident from “generation to generation” (Lk. 1:50). King David reminds us that our souls are blessed when we take time to recount God’s many benefits that fill our years with good things (Ps. 103:5). Such observations lead poet Denise Levertov to conclude that awe can become a source of deep comfort and follow us.

Yet, how do we read those words in our modern context where a pandemic continues to tax our emotional, physical, financial, and spiritual resources?  When you lose your job; see a loved one fall ill or die; have your education suddenly moved online again; watch finances be strained or obliterated; and 24/7 see evidence of social and political unrest, it's a little hard to hear God’s mercy extends from generation to generation and our souls are blessed by counting our blessings.

Yet, what David and Mary say is true­—God is at work in every generation. What might need to change is our expectation of what it means for God to act? If we have a limited idea of what divine action looks like—dramatic answers to prayer, healings with no medical explanation, financial needs being met unexpectedly—then we miss seeing how God acts through common grace in ordinary, everyday ways such as antibiotics, financial planners, and thoughtful friends. 

This past year–while a pandemic raged—I was sustained by an ongoing study on the oft neglected topic of common grace which can be defined as, the undeserved blessings God pours out on the entire human race without discrimination or bias between one person or another. The central feature of this type of grace is that all people experience it. Rebels and saints alike can count on regular seasons to plant and harvest crops, learn to build fires for cold nights, create language to communicate with others, discover medicines to fight off disease, formulate governments to help communities flourish, navigate long journeys by consulting the stars, learn the truths of mathematics for abstract thinking, and create art to imagine beauty and draw us up to higher ideals.

Becoming aware of God acting in the world will require a change in what C. S. Lewis called the, “seeing eye.” When asked about a Russian astronaut’s bold claim that they did not see God in outer space, Lewis responded: “To some, God is discoverable everywhere; to others, nowhere. Those who do not find Him on earth are unlikely to find Him in space. But send a saint up in a spaceship and he’ll find God in space as he found God on earth. Much depends on the seeing eye.”^[1] Interestingly, Lewis argues that we often miss God due to our inattention. 

This Advent season let us cultivate a “seeing eye” that not only praises God for dramatic answers to prayer, but also affirms that “every good gift” is from above (Jm. 1:17). Today let us recognize that hot coffee (cream and two sugars), laughter, aspirin, unexpected compliment, pets, Advent devotionals, family, seasons, music, braveness of front-line workers, poetry, and yes, even endless Zoom meetings are a form of God’s common grace. And, if those provoke awe, then the comfort Levertov poetically describes will follow us not only today, but generation to generation.

Prayer:
Father—the giver of all good gifts—help us develop a “seeing eye” that allows us to count our daily blessings. Help us to see you in the big and small. As our seeing eye becomes sharper let us be diligent to express thanks to both the Giver and those around us.  

^[1] C.S. Lewis, The Joyful Christian (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1997), 6.

Devotion Author: 
Tim Muehlhoff
Professor of Communication
Co-director of the Winsome Conviction Project
Biola University

For more information about the artwork, music, poetry, and devotional writer selected for this day, we have provided resources under the “About” tab located next to the “Devotional” tab.