Before, And Not After, You Need Him

“Ascribe ye strength unto God: his excellency is over Israel, and his strength is in the clouds.” (Ps 68:34 AV)

Those first five words can seem a bit puzzling.  God is omnipotent.  He cannot get any stronger.  He possesses strength without bounds.  His strength is infinite.  How can we grant to God something which He possesses infinitely when we are finite?  The Hebrew word for ‘ascribe’ only serves to add to the confusion unless you look deep into possible definitions in light of settled theology.  We know God possesses strength without bounds.  Therefore, we cannot add to something which 1) we have none when compared to His, and 2) when adding to it wouldn’t make it any larger.  Some of the definitions of this Hebrew word are, to mention, designate, published; to requite to.  In other words, when David is telling us to ascribe strength to God, he is not saying we are to give our strength to a God who needs it. Rather, we are to come to the end of our own strength and acknowledge the strength of God to be greater than any and all things we could or would face in our own strength.  The meaning goes a bit further than this.  To ascribe strength to God means to acknowledge and yield to His strength in all things as if we had none.

There are several ways in which we fail to ascribe strength to God.  We can fail by trying to do something we cannot do without His help.  Remember your adolescent?  He always wanted to do things on his own.  When we tried to help him or her, pride got the better of the child and he refused help from an adult.  “No, I can do it, daddy.”  They would struggle and struggle until they came to the end of themselves and they would finally give up and allow an adult to help them.  This type of person often causes great damage along the way.  Not only to himself but to all those affected by his pride.  We don’t change much.  We are reluctant to ask for help.  If we are stuck in the snow, we will sit and spin the tires until others are moved with concern.  We will not get out of the car and seek help.  We will try to get out ourselves.  We can also think a situation is bigger than He can handle.  God has this.  He always has.  David’s suggestion here is to ascribe strength to God at the very beginning of a situation rather than wait until we are exhausted.  The suggestion is the first place we go is to God and His ability rather than wait until nothing is left.  This admonishment is one meant to encourage us to declare a truth and live by faith according to that truth.

Many years ago, I had this Jeep Grand Cherokee.  It was a true all-wheel drive.  This truck could go anywhere.  One very snowy night, I was asked to get some employees home.  The roads were impassible for most cars.  With several feet of snow on the roads, off I headed.  I had two or three people who needed to get home.  One was about fifteen miles out of town on some back country roads.  These roads were often covered with snow drifts.  Some were at least three feet deep.  I didn’t have a problem ascribing strength to that Jeep.  I knew it could get the job done.  I didn’t attempt to try with another car or walk with my own two feet.  I sized up the situation and without any pride on my part, loaded them up and took them home.  Safe and sound.  Why don’t we do this with all of life’s challenges?  Instead, we wait until the end of our own strength and then seek God.  How foolish.  We should ascribe strength to God and lean on Him at all times.