Awesome: Advent Day 5

Psalm 65:5

By awesome deeds you answer us with deliverance, O God of our salvation; you are the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas.

I didn’t need this article (click here to read The Problem With Awesome) to tell me that I have a problem with the word awesome, but I will say that I almost laughed out loud reading these lines:

For particularly stringent grammarians of a certain generation, the rite of passage that marks the official start of adulthood is the point at which one becomes annoyed at hearing someone say that something is awesome, when they don’t actually mean that it produces awe.

These people feel that this use of the word awesome is a sign of sloppiness in language, or something that they never did when they were young, or a portent of the continual and concomitant decline of our language and the moral turpitude of our youth. Before we decide whether or not the modern sense of awesome is indeed the hereto unknown fifth horseman of the apocalypse, it is worth examining some of the word’s history.

I know I have a problem with the word awesome. I don’t know if it started somewhere in my childhood, or if The Lego Movie did it with its effervescent theme song (Everything Is Awesome!), but I definitely overuse this word. Everything from a child completing his homework to dinner being ready is awesome!

So, when the psalmist describes God’s deeds as awesome, I know I’m not catching the full meaning. The hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas inspires true awe–something more akin to fear and utmost wonder.

I’m not in utmost wonder that the homework is done. But I am in utmost wonder, with the psalmist, that God silences the roaring of the seas and the tumult of the peoples. I stand in awe at God’s provision and blessing. I look back on times in my life when the storms have assailed me and I can say that God’s presence with me in the midst of those storms was awesome. It was overwhelming to be so assured, when every ounce of my being said the exact opposite, that all would be well. It was awe-full to hear God’s voice so clearly and to know that the awful chapter I was experiencing wasn’t the end of my story.

I love the accompanying song for this day, the title track of the Indigo Girls’ newest studio album, Look Long. It invites us to keep the faith and to adjust our focus by looking long, when so often we can’t see beyond our narrow perspective:

God bless our brave little hearts and our inherent limitations and our short-sighted plans and our collusion.

The hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas is at work to save us, to deliver this weary world. Look long. Look for the awesome deeds of this God–the one who makes the gateways of the morning and the evening shout for joy; the one who waters our parched places, softening the furrowed lines and the settled ridges; the awesome one who is both coming and is already here.

Come, Jesus, come. Help us to look long and to see your awesome deeds on the horizon. Amen.

Today’s accompanying song is Look Long by the Indigo Girls.