They feast on the bounty of your house;
you let them drink from your river of pure joy.
(Psalm 36:8, CEB)

“Guess How Much I Love You?” saith the Lord.

Actually, “Guess how much I love you?” saith the Little Nutbrown Hare to the Big Nutbrown Hare, in the book of the same name, written by Sam McBrantney and illustrated by Anita Jeram. But for every measure of love the Little Hare can imagine–as tall as he can reach, as high as he can hop, as far as the moon–the Big Nutbrown Hare professes a love even taller, even higher, even “to the moon and back.”

We might read the Psalmist’s lyrics as God’s “Guess how much…” for us: love extending to the skies, faithfulness stretching to the clouds, righteousness strong as mountains, justice deep as seas. We might be tempted to settle for the sweetness in such a story. We might stitch it into embroidered samplers or decoupage it onto decorative plaques to hang in our living rooms.

Or we might lay on our backs in the green grass and try not to blink our eyes in the glare of the sun: strain our vision to try to see just how high into the heavens such love can reach. See where the clouds begin and end. See self-righteousness shrinking in the shadow of the mountain. See small acts of goodness splashing like stones into a bottomless sea.

This love, this faithfulness, this righteousness, this justice: these are beyond our ability to see or even to imagine. These are beyond “the moon and back.” They are beyond value, beyond price. They are beyond even our most aching needs and our most barren places.

They are light beyond what our wide-open pupils can take in.

They are gifts beyond what our two hands can hold.

They are the bounty God offers: the fulfilling feast beyond our hunger, the quenching river beyond our thirst. “Guess how much I love you?” saith the Lord.

Enough for all.
 

Nikki Finkelstein-Blair is an ordained Baptist minister, at-home mom, and military spouse living in Charleston, South Carolina. She blogs at One Faithful Step.