The Kindness of God….

One of the blogs in my google reader feed posted the lyrics to a hymn written in 1854 by Frederick William Faber.  Farber was a Calvinist turned…oddly enough…Catholic priest.  At the time, Catholics were reluctant to sing Protestant hymns…and they had none of their own.  So Farber composed quite a few hymns…including the one posted on Steve McVey’s blog, There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy.

The lyrics speak of the kindness of God…kindness in his justice and Heaven’s kindly judgment of earth’s failings.  One verse that I especially liked….

For the love of God is broader
Than the measure of our mind;
And the heart of the Eternal
Is most wonderfully kind.

And when I got to thinking about his kindness, the verse in Romans that proclaims it his kindness that leads us to repentance came to mind…

Romans 2:4
Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?

And then another song that my friend, annie has mentioned on occasion; Wayland the Rabbit, by Seals and Crofts

One fine morning, as Dad was walking, just to see what he could see.

He spied, a little white rabbit. He was frozen as solid as he could be.

And Dad cried, as he knelt down beside him. He asked God, "How could you be so cruel?"

And his heart broke, for the little white rabbit.

"But you see that the owl would never have been so gentle, And God is so kind."

Which triggered another memory in my ring around the rosie thought process….from an article I read a long time ago…and saved excerpts from in my files.  It was a short writing that talked about the verse in Matthew where Jesus says:

Are not, two sparrows, for a farthing, sold? And, one from among them, shall not fall upon the ground, without your Father; Matthew 10:29 Emph

I googled it and found the link.

How can we make sense of this crazy, godless world? by Dave Farcas.  A quote from the article….

He literally experiences the death of the sparrow; He suffers it's death empathetically.

I would like to quote Jacques Ellul's comments on this, "In other words, death comes according to natural laws, but God lets nothing in his creation die without being there, without being the comfort and strength and hope and support of that which dies. At issue is the presence of God, not his will."

And God is, indeed, so kind…..