The Unusual Combinations

The first time I remember hearing Psalm 36 was through the old Third Day song “Your Love, Oh Lord.” I’d blast it on the way to school as a teenager:

Your love, Oh Lord, reaches to the heavens,

your faithfulness stretches to the skies.

That’s Mac Powell’s paraphrase of verse 5:

Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens,

your faithfulness to the clouds.

Pretty straightforward, and universally fitting — it works wherever there’s a sky. We look up into the vastness, into the unending ceiling of clouds, and think: God’s love is big like that. It’s all-encompassing, ever constant, overcoming.

But David doesn’t stop at size. In verse 7 he says,

How precious is your steadfast love, O God!

The Hebrew word for precious means rare, splendid, weighty. It’s a jewel-word. So God’s love is not only vast, but valuable. We imagine God’s love with the immensity of the heavens and the worth of a diamond. That’s an unusual combination — infinite in supply and yet of incomparable worth.

Then there’s another surprising pairing:

The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings.

They feast on the abundance of your house,

and you give them drink from the river of your delights.

(vv. 7–8)

To seek refuge assumes danger. There’s a tornado barreling down the street. The seas are roaring and mountains giving way. We need shelter, fast. When the ground beneath us shakes, God is where we run and hide.

And yet the very next line in verse 8 sounds less like a storm shelter and more like a banquet hall. Feasting. Abundance. A river of delights.

That doesn’t sound like waiting out a storm in the basement. That sounds like joy. That sounds like goodness — sheer, unfiltered goodness.

Again, we don’t usually put those together: “Take cover — and taste delight.”

It reminds me of Mr. Beaver telling Susan in Narnia,

“Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

We love that line — and it’s true. But Scripture also tells us that God is safe. He is both safe and good. We run to him not only to survive, but to flourish. His love is vast like the heavens and precious like a jewel — and in that very place of refuge we find feasting.

And all of this comes to us through Jesus. At the cross, the vastness of God’s love was demonstrated, and everything that endangered us before God was removed. Now his face shines on us — refuge and rejoicing, protection and pleasure, safety and glory.

So today, look up at the sky and remember that big love is for you. And, if possible, perhaps you can blast that old Third Day song.