God Out of the Box

"All you nations, praise the Lord. All you people, extol him because the Lord loves us very much—great is his loyalty/love toward us—and his truth/faithfulness is everlasting. Praise the Lord!"—Psalm 117, Expanded

Not surprisingly, God knew Twitter long before Twitter was invented. The evidence is here in these two verses. (OK, maybe a bit over the 140-character limit, but who’s going to argue?) It's His eternal Genesis to Revelation love song to us—the simple Gospel boiled down to the shortest psalm of them all, even the shortest chapter in the entire Bible:

• “My unfailing love for you is more powerful than anything you can ever conceive." (verse 1)

• “My faithfulness in that love and in the promises I have made never has and never will quit on you.” (verse 2)

You mean, that's it? Yes, and it's more than enough!

While it's true that there are endless depths and riches of God to be explored and enjoyed so that we can know Him even more, if Psalm 117 had a hash tag regarding our Walk, in addition to expressing our praise extravagantly and often, it would be: #keepitsimple

And like this psalm, that includes ditching the unnecessarily complicated boxes we try to put both Him and ourselves in along the Journey:

Yes, God loves digging deep into us through long, meaty sermons and probing study.

But God also loves getting to the point quickly, with an exclamation mark or two beating fast in our hearts.

Yes, God loves it when we take a chunk of time to sing and pray our hearts out.

But God also loves our heart-felt, conversational, on-the-go sound bites, like “thank you!” and “help!” 

Yes, God really loves it when we can hang out with Him for hours at a time.

But God also knows that some days are, well, simply two-verse kind of days.

“Trying to figure out God," says author/pastor Matt Chandler, "is like trying to catch a fish in the Pacific Ocean with an inch of dental floss.” But the #keepitsimple, box-busting, rooftop-shouting, simple Gospel truth of the shortest Bible chapter ever written is this: Whether deep and wide or in "tweet" format, God loves to love us. And love deeply, and continually. Not from a galaxy far, far away either, but smack dab in the midst of wherever life's circumstances has us on any given day so that we, in turn, can learn to walk this way:

"So I give you a new command: Love each other deeply and fully. Remember the ways that I have loved you, and demonstrate your love for others in those same ways."

(John 13:34, The Voice)

"And I reach out, and You find me in the dust; You say no amount of untruths can separate us. I will rejoice in the simple Gospel, I will rejoice in You, Lord!"— Will Reagan and Brock Human, United Pursuit