God’s love is meteoric,

    his loyalty astronomic,

His purpose titanic,

    his verdicts oceanic.

Yet in his largeness

    nothing gets lost;

Not a man, not a mouse,

    slips through the cracks.

7-9 How exquisite your love, O God!

    How eager we are to run under your wings,

To eat our fill at the banquet you spread

    as you fill our tankards with Eden spring water.

You’re a fountain of cascading light,

    and you open our eyes to light.

10-12 Keep on loving your friends;

    do your work in welcoming hearts.

Don’t let the bullies kick me around,

    the moral midgets slap me down.

Send the upstarts sprawling

    flat on their faces in the mud. (The Message).

I’d like to encourage you to re-read these verses in the translation you normally use, then read it once more in Peterson’s paraphrase above. I believe these songs/poem-prayers, are to be felt, not merely analysed. So let the gigantic waves of God’s generous love sweep over you. Feel exhilaratingly washed in the ocean of His undeserved favour; eat your fill at His banqueting table (and consider the words of Jesus in John 10:10).

In the ‘NIV’ verse 8 reads: “They feast on the abundance of your house;

    you give them drink from your river of delights.”

I understand that the word for “delights” is closely related to the word for ‘Eden.’ So this may take us back in thought to Genesis 2:10 where “A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters.” It maybe also causes us to think about Ezekiel 47:1-12 and Revelation 22:1,2. Also, the words of Jesus in John 4: 13, 14 and 7:37-39.

The bottom line is this: eternal destinies, and current lifestyles are at stake; and it is better to swim in the deeps of God’s lavish love, than to drown in the polluted river of self-love.

We each have a choice to make.

PRAYER: Lord God, you have poured immeasurable spiritual wealth upon me.Help me not to live (needlessly) as a pauper.