Your steadfast love, O LORD, extends to the heavens,
your faithfulness to the clouds.
Your righteousness is like the mountains of God;
your judgments are like the great deep;
man and beast you save, O LORD.
— Psalm 36:5-6

There is a picture in my mind. It’s drawn in crayon. There’s a house, a stick-figure family, maybe a tree and a swath of blue across the top of the page. Details may change, but it’s a drawing we’ve all created at some point in our childhoods.

I remember a zealous elementary school art teacher who begged and pleaded with us not to paint that swath of blue. The sky isn’t just up there, she would insist. The sky meets the earth. The sky surrounds us. Can you tell I started school in the 70s?

I forget the art teacher’s name, but I easily recalled her words once when I was listening to the Third Day song, Your Love, Oh Lord, which is taken from the psalm quoted above. The psalm, explains lead singer Mac Powell, tells us that when we see the physical things of the earth we are reminded of God’s “faithfulness and his righteousness and his love for us.”

God’s qualities run deeper, stronger and higher than we can imagine. His judgments are as deep as the ocean, deeper than our limited human understanding can fathom.

His righteousness is strong and solid like the mountains — but don’t think of the glorified hills we call mountains here in the eastern United States. Think of the majestic heights of the Rockies. Better yet, think of the hills of Judea that surrounded the psalmist. There are no trees on those mountains to cover the solid rock that lies beneath.

And then there is his love that reaches the sky. My old art teacher would point out that the sky surrounds us. His love surrounds us. His love meets the earth.

But, wait. Look again at that psalm. Does it say that his love reaches down from heaven? Or that his love extends from heaven to earth?

No.

It extends. It reaches to the sky.

Just like Ultimate Love that reached the sky as He died on a cross.

Check back next week!

Steve Thomas