For the New Year I had started writing a post, but that didn’t feel right. So I started a second, got to the end and it still didn’t feel right. So I started again, resulting in Friday’s post A Lament to Start 2021. I kind of love when that happens, because I feel like I am not writing simply what I want to say, but what I am led to communicate.
This is the second post, when I got to the end, then my fingers began tapping in a different direction, a different message from what I had planned.
Hesed …
A Hebrew word. Wikipedia says “the word is used of kindness or love between people.” Our world could all use more of that!
But, Hesed is more than just kindness … and love itself has so many meanings … no, Hesed is grander than these.
In the Bible, like Wikipedia, Hesed is often translated as lovingkindness but it is also translated as a steadfast love. Does this make things clearer? Maybe, maybe not.
To understand Hesed we need to understand the unconditional, compassionate, covenantal, generous, merciful, loyal, permanence that is all part of this steadfast love,
The steadfast love of God is not offered/given as a payment for good behavior, not an owed obligation, but freely and without any pause in the delivery of it.
The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22-23
It is this steadfast love, this hesed, that means we live under grace (which is undeserved) rather than judgement or wrath. Hesed is the definition, the fulfillment of the good news of the grace offered to such a worm as I (Psalm 22:6) by one who knew no sin (1 John 3:5).
Hebrew scholar Dom Rembert Sorg wrote that hesed is “really the Old Testament reflex (reflected image) of ‘God is love.'”
And this hesed, this lovingkindness, this steadfast love is available to us all!
Could we be more blessed, more fortunate, more … prepared for a new year and all of the good, bad and ugly that awaits us, provided with this grace, mercy and love? We not only have a new year ahead, but we are not entering it alone, unempowered, lost.
We have the firm foundation of steadfast love that never ceases!
And that makes for a Happy New Year!
“Life is dear, but God’s love is dearer.
To dwell with God is better than life at its best;
life at ease, in a palace, in health, in honour, in wealth, in pleasure;
yea, a thousand lives are not equal to the eternal life which abides in Jehovah’s smile.
In him we truly live, and move, and have our being …”
Charles Spurgeon
itsawonderfilledlife 