Awesome!

For the LORD Most High is awesome. He is the great King of all the earth. Psalm 47:2 NLT

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Those who have spent much time around me know what I think about the overuse of the word awesome. Rather than write once again with my own opinions, here’s something written by Dennis De Haan. I found it in the Our Daily Bread devotional some time ago:

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AWESOME!

It’s an often-used word, and we hear it in the most unusual contexts. It’s the word awesome.

My 9-year-old grandson Josh and I were playing with a radio-controlled racecar set on the living room floor. Several times he would say, “Awesome!”

On another occasion, as my wife and I were leaving a restaurant, the manager, who was standing by the door, asked, “How was everything, folks?” “Fine,” I replied. “Awesome!” he said.

These two occasions set me to thinking: While it’s fun to play with my grandson and to enjoy a meal at a restaurant, are these experiences really awesome? So I consulted Mr. Webster’s unabridged dictionary. The primary definition lists awesome as “deeply reverent,” “dreadful,” “awful.” I remembered the time that I stood on the south rim of the Grand Canyon. That was truly an awesome experience.

Then I thought of a more awe-inspiring reality still. It’s knowing the Creator and Sustainer of the entire universe. No wonder the psalmist wrote, “The LORD Most High is awesome.”

The next time we hear the word awesome, may it remind us of our great God, who truly is awesome!

Dennis De Haan

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Our language is a flowing, dynamic thing. There is no “Central English Bureau” controlling the changing use of words nor the introduction of new words into our vocabularies. Dictionaries are not a record of proper usage but, rather, a reflection of how our language is changing. That’s why they’re updated periodically.

And this letter is not meant as a criticism of those who use the word awesome to describe a new restaurant or a radio-controlled racecar–or anything else for that matter! Go ahead and use it.

Perhaps now that you’ve read this, however, the Holy Spirit will prompt you to think of the word you are using and Who it best describes.  When this happens, meditate for a few moments on the truly awesome One.

To paraphrase the old cliché: Beside the word awesome in the dictionary, there ought to be a picture of our Heavenly Father-the LORD Most High.

Love,
Brother Bill