Psalm 36: Faithfulness

This poem of David contrasts our condition with God’s character. He began by telling us about the “transgression of the wicked”. In a bit of a shift from previous psalms, David doesn’t deal with the actions of his enemies, but rather the condition of all our hearts. He writes of our lack of reverence, our tendency to think highly of our strengths and excuse our weaknesses, our stubbornness to push for our own way and our inclination to deceive anyone, including ourselves to satisfy our desires or minimize our responsibility. But the beauty of this psalm is that David doesn’t allow himself to sit in the emotion created by the actions of others, he looks past the actions and into the heart, but then, he lifts his attention out of man’s condition and into God’s character.

In verse 5, David stops talking to himself about his problem or those who cause his problems and speaks directly to God. It’s such a severe turn that it almost feels like a different psalm, “Your mercy, O LORD, is in the heavens; Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds. Your righteousness is like the great mountains; Your judgments are a great deep”. David sets his heart on the great contrast: our condition and God’s character. We are all sinners, God is holy, completely other. We have all gone our own way, God has patiently endured, offering lovingkindness that would lead us to repentance. We break our vows, change our minds, renege on our promises and break our commitments, with God “there is no variation or shadow due to change”. Our calamity does not change His character.

There is one word that David used here that I want to explore, a word that we sing and share often, but a word that I want to better understand. David calls God faithful. What does that really mean? Is the faithfulness of God something that binds Him to do what we expect or is it something that is to remind us that He is always good? Is His faithfulness about His actions or His character, His responses or His heart? The Hebrew word is “emuwnah”, its literal meaning is “firmness”. This is a description of who God is, of the fabric of His being, the core of who He is, not what we can expect Him to do, but what we can be assured that He is. God is firm. That doesn’t mean that He’s harsh or unkind, but rather, that we can be convinced that He won’t ever stop being who He is. While life is filled with unexpected twists and turns, while people can be fickle and even duplicitous, while our own hearts are often deceitful, God is faithful.

The firmness of God is found in His perfection, He is not only without fault, there is no lack in Him. James wrote that “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above coming down from the Father of lights . . .” It’s not just that all good things come from God, it’s that all goodness is in God. He is the source and embodiment of goodness, He doesn’t simply do good things, He is good; He doesn’t just possess goodness He Himself is the definition of good. How does this help define Him as faithful? God has no need to change, no need to shift, no need to slip. He is complete in Himself so there is no moment of weakness to tempt Him, no fears or doubts to sway Him. He extends mercy because He desires forgiveness, reconciliation and redemption. He wants, II Peter even says, that He wills that none would perish but that all would come to repentance, but He doesn’t need our salvation for Him to be complete. He wants us so much that He sent His Son to die for us, but He does not need us, meaning He will not change His character to win our approval or gain our affection.

The faithfulness of God, in my mind, is our greatest promise. Promises of what God will do are wonderful, but His ways are higher than ours, His timing is much different than ours and His desires are eternal while many of ours are still very temporary. Basically, God doesn’t always do what we expect or even what we want, but He always does what He has promised and what He does is always good. What we can be sure of, at all times, is that God will always be Himself. In Revelation 1, John called the Father “Him who is, and who was and who is to come.” Then Jesus referred to Himself as “the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, who is and who was and who is to come.” This singular description of the Father and the Son is to settle our hearts into the promise of who God is. All that God has ever been is all that He will always be, and it is all that He is being right now. This is why God’s character matters so much. We won’t always know what He’s doing but we can be sure of who He is. We won’t always see His hand, but we can be assured of His heart. We won’t always get what we hoped for, but God will always be Himself. In every season, every circumstance and every moment, God is true to Himself. He is love, He is holy, He is merciful, He is mighty, He is just, and He is longsuffering. In every “yes” and in every “no” God is being faithful to Himself and being faithful to us. His foot won’t slip, He won’t let us go, His mercy reaches the heavens, His faithfulness extends to the clouds. He will always be Himself and in Himself He is always all we need.