Full and Great

The Lord is gracious and full of compassion,
Slow to anger and great in mercy.
9 The Lord is good to all,
And His tender mercies are over all His works. (Psalm 145:8-9, NKJV)

When I first got serious about meditating the word of God (see my previous post), this is the portion of Scripture that first came to my thoughts. 

• The Lord is gracious -- When I think of someone who is gracious, I think of the perfect gentleman or gentlewoman. A gracious person puts you at ease with his manner. This person smiles at you with kindness and benevolence as though you were the only person in the world. Your comfort and needs being met are that person's top priority. What a picture of our God!
• The Lord is ... full of compassion -- Picture a container filled with water -- there is no room for anything else! Fullness speaks of every available area of space being taken up. It also speaks of the possibility of spilling out, of overflow at the slightest bump. What is our Lord filled with? Compassion. That characteristic speaks of His oneness with our suffering and his yearning to see us relieved of the pain we live in. Certainly it was this compassion that ultimately sent Jesus to the cross to die for us and give us new life. This is the emotion that God has toward us -- in such a degree that He is filled to the brim with compassion to us and ready to overflow at the slightest provocation.
• Slow to anger and great in mercy -- Like a lumbering giant, God's anger is extremely slow to ignite. However, his mercy springs into action at the drop of a hat. What makes God great? What is He known for? His mercy, not his anger. He is defined by his mercy, his love, his forgiveness. He longs to show mercy. He would much prefer to be merciful than to be angry towards anything that He has made. It delights Him to be merciful.
• The Lord is good to all -- The Lord's goodness can't be reserved for only those who deserve it. No, His goodness is to ALL. His goodness has no boundaries and is like the ocean depths, that can't be fathomed. There is so much goodness available to each and every person, with none of God's limitless resources being exhausted.
• His tender mercies are over all His works -- God tenderly cares for all that He has made. He is not negligent about any of His creation, from the most minute particle to his crowning creation, mankind. I love the word "tender" in this passage. As if His mercies were not enough, there is also protective and affectionate tenderness toward us, like a mother toward her child. How can we doubt the love and care of such a God?