not me

I recently started teaching Sunday School, and not because I’m so adequate or spiritual. There was a need, I was asked, and here we are.

Thus began some intense humbling. Pastor suggested I start a series on the attributes of God for my seven year olds. OK, I thought, sounds good to me! What better to teach these little minds than truths about the one true God?

It’s one thing to know it’s a good idea, it’s another to actually study it out and boil down God’s infinite characteristics into something that can be consumed by second graders. As I started looking up verses on God’s holiness – the first attribute – I started to get a tiny bit of a sense of Isaiah’s response to seeing God in his throneroom. 

Truly, to quote the prophet, “Woe is me!” In modern terms, that’d be, “I’m in deeeeeeeep trouble!” The more I read about God and his holiness, the more I am aware of my stinkiness as a sinner. No wonder Isaiah later wrote about even our “righteous” acts as being “filthy rags”. 

But, oh how wonderful to realize the beauty that is my God. To have the wonderful privilege to be reconciled to him because of his Son’s work for me. And to joy in the fact that he is utterly not me. 

He is holy.