“God is Great and God is Good. Let us thank Him for our food. Amen.”

This was the first prayer I learned to recite at mealtimes, and now I realize that this simple little rhyme is actually a very profound petition. How profound?

Reading through the Bible every year has slowly, clearly, and indelibly formed me theologically. My thoughts and visions of God have been reshaped around the whole narrative of Scripture. Yet, every once in a while, I come across a single passage that speaks to me about the total theological vision of God that has taken up residence in my soul. Psalm 145 is one such passage.

Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise;
his greatness no one can fathom.
One generation commends your works to another;
they tell of your mighty acts. (Psalm 145:3–4, NIV)

Yes, God, the creator God of all the universe, is so great that we can not even dream or imagine (“fathom”) how great he is.

And then by the time we get toward the end of the same psalm, we read:

The Lord is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and rich in love.
The Lord is trustworthy in all he promises
and faithful in all he does.
The Lord upholds all who fall
and lifts up all who are bowed down. (vv. 8,13,14)

The same God does not stand far off in his greatness, but he is rich in love and reaches down to lift up the lowly and downtrodden. God is high and great. And God bends low in care for the weak and needy.

We may take this simple truism for granted, but we ought not do so. There is no god like this God. None. Thor, the Norse god of thunder, is not gentle and kind. He uses a hammer! Jupiter, the Roman god of the sky and thunder, holds a lightning bolt and is accompanied by an eagle (not a sparrow). The Chinese goddess Guanyin is the goddess of mercy and compassion. And on it goes. These are gods that are created by humans personify a quality or power. They tend to be singular (Baccaus is the god of wine; Vulcan, the god of fire.). But YHWH is the one true only God. And though he is all-powerful, he uses his might and greatness to help the lowly and needy.

And, unique to Christianity alone, he is God who visits earth as a man and identifies his mission this way:

The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. (Luke 4:18f, from Isaiah 61)

This assertion may not seem so profound to those who read the Bible continuously, or who have been suckled on great biblical sermons, but it is, well, ineffable.

There has never been a time in which people and nations consistently used their power to care for the downtrodden and oppressed, but it seems to me that we live in a time in which more and more power is being used to support the powerful rather than to care for the weak and needy.

Like God, we who are made in his image should similarly reach down and lift up. It is up to the church to step forward and use its influence, money, and property to lift up those who are low.

I believe it is a basic understanding of who God is: God is great and God is good. “He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing.” (Deuteronomy 10:18)

As I reflect on this—and invite you to join me in reflection—the song “Jesus, Strong and Kind” (feat. Colin Buchanan) comes to mind.

Dr. Scott W. Sunquist, president of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, is author of the “Attentiveness” blog. He welcomes comments, responses, and good ideas.