Superlatives

June 28

We tend to speak of the things we value—as well of the things we disdain—in superlatives. ‘I just love Aunt Alice’s salad dressing.’ ‘That’s the worst example of umpiring a game that I’ve ever seen—kill the umpire!’ We give high praise to things we like or enjoy. (What salad dressing deserves our ‘love’? What mere, fallible mortal deserves death for missing a call at a sports event?)

We exaggerate the importance of little things to the degree that words don’t mean what they were originally intended to convey. We have used them in this way for so long that nobody thinks of them as they were originally intended. By our misuse of words, we have changed their meanings. Language, therefore, evolves.

Because it does, we may not be impacted by such truth as stated in John 3:16, “For God so loves the world, He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” If we equate ‘love’ to our favorite salad dressing, what can God’s unfathomable love possibly mean to us? It is indeed just that, unfathomable!

So, in His Word, God speaks to us of His love in graphic terms, painting a word picture for us that, if we will allow it to do so, can convey to us some understanding of the depth of that wonderful feeling the Majesty on High holds out to us. One such example is in Psalm 108:4 which says, “Great is Your love, higher than the heavens; Your faithfulness reaches to the skies.” The Lord’s love is so great, it is beyond our scope.