Psalm 107

At a Bible study I attended recently, someone remarked that we sinful human beings have a pretty distorted view of love. I totally agree. I feel like there is a recent trend within Christianity to paint Jesus as a “nice” guy and call it love. Whether that takes into account the whole of Jesus’ interactions with people is another question. (Some might not think calling people snakes and frauds qualifies as “nice”.)

When you begin to define love as “being nice,” you run into a lot of trouble in the Old Testament. Most of what God did in the Old Testament doesn’t look very nice. It looks more like the New Testament equivalent of telling someone they’d be better off if they were drowned in the sea (Matt 18:6).

This psalm chronicles a lot of those not-so-nice things (along with other, very nice things) God did:

He helps people find a home. (vs 7)
He satisfies hunger and thirst. (vs 9)
He subjects people to hard labor and bitter situations. (vs 12)
He breaks down bronze gates and iron bars. (vs 16)
He causes people to suffer affliction because of their rebellion. (vs 17)
He heals people and rescues them from the grave. (vs 20)
He calms storms. (vs 29)
He turns rivers into deserts. (vs 33)
He turns fruitful land into a wasteland. (vs 34)
He turns deserts into flowing springs. (vs 35)
He causes the righteous to flourish. (vs 38)
He humbles people with oppression, calamity, and sorrow. (vs 39)
He lifts the needy out of their affliction. (vs 41)

And then the kicker: “Let the one who is wise heed these things and ponder the loving deeds of the LORD.” (vs 43) All of these are examples of loving acts. We might not say they all qualify as nice, but they are certainly all loving.

God never does anything that isn’t loving. If you read through this entire psalm, it’s clear that all those “harsh” things God did were for the very purpose of bringing His people back to Him—and it worked. In every scenario, the psalmist says the people “cried out to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress.”

I think it’s time we stop defining love as “being nice.” God is definitely not a pansy, and He doesn’t shy away from the tough stuff when He knows it’s necessary. His love may not always be “nice,” but it is always ultimately “kind.” Everything He does, He does for our benefit.

Thank goodness He is willing to be hard when it’s hard!