Praising God because He is Both “Up There” and “Down Here”

Remember the teeter-totter? That classic piece of playground equipment where you go up and down with a counter-balancing partner? If they happened to be a lot bigger than you, you might get stuck in the “up” position looking down at them. And then if they were ornery and prematurely bailed out on you, down you would go with a tailbone-jarring thud.

The up and down of the teeter-totter came to mind as I considered Psalm 113 recently. There the psalmist praises God because not only is He high above all that He has created (transcendent), He also is down here with us (condescending).

The writer says,

“Who can be compared with the LORD our God, who is enthroned on high? He stoops to look down on heaven and on earth. He lifts the poor from the dust and the needy from the garbage dump” (v. 5-7)

The psalmist was overcome because no other god could compare to the LORD. There were gods that appeared to be super high and powerful and there were those that were down low and accessible, but none of them were both high and low like the LORD.

In Jesus, we have a God that is uniquely high AND lowly. He exists above the clouds, but He also plumbs the depths of human existence below sea level. He is way “up there” above the turbulence and difficulties down here, yet He is also right smack in the middle of the turbulence and difficulties with us.

Warren Wiersbe explains that “the love of God and the grace of God made him stoop to our level, especially when he sent Jesus Christ to become one of us and die for us on the cross.” In Christ, God came down from His exalted position so that we in the lowlands could go up (Philippians 2:5-10).

Just like the teeter-totter.

So which is it…is God way up and  otherwordly or is He way down and nearby? Yes, He is.

It’s a new day with God. Run with it.