Articles
“Three Ways To Describe God”
Asking someone to "describe" God could be an interesting request. In some ways, it's complicated. After all, we are mere humans who are limited to an earth-based life that struggles to see the spiritual side of things that is required in order to more fully please our very spiritual Creator. At the same time, the Bible was written to give us an understanding of God in a way that was tangible and practical. The Psalmist David is one of the best sources for us to turn to in order to better understand and describe God. Consider the three ways he does so in Psalm 86:10:
"For You are great, and do wondrous things; You alone are God."
One of the best ways to "begin" describing God is that He is great. He is awesome, powerful, all-knowing, perfect, gracious, merciful, and eternal. Only God can be God! In His attempt to introduce Himself to a people who knew little about Jehovah, God spent a lot of time stressing the importance of worshipping Him and Him alone. This makes perfect sense as one compares the only true and great God with the false, man-made images of deity that proved time and again their inability to really be worthy of worship.
A second effective way of describing God is to see Him as the worker of truly wondrous things. The Hebrew writer reflected on this when he spoke of God creating the world by His mere voice and dong so without any sort of "raw materials" (Hebrews 11:3). If that was all we knew about God, that would be "enough" to convince us of His greatness. But, we are fortunate to know a more complete and even more meaningful picture of the Creator to see His most wondrous work ever and that's the salvation-providing plan for mankind. The gift of Jesus, God's only Son, is without a doubt the most wonderful thing ever-- period.
Finally, to describe God, it's important to note that only He is God. This fact should cause us to reflect on two key things. First, as previously noted, it reminds us of the fact that in a world that wants many gods, there is only one God whom we should worship. But it's also helpful to know that this means that only God can be counted on. He is faithful and reliable, more so than any human. We can trust God more than anything or anyone because He alone is God. In a world filled with disappointing things and even disappointing people, it's incredibly comforting to consider the only God as a compassionate, caring Father who will never let us down because only He is God.
