You Keep On Getting Better

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! (Romans 11:33)

If God has begun to seem boring or ordinary to us, it is only because we have forgotten how to uncover and discover more of him — in his word, in his creation, in our own lives.

One of the great and tragic consequences of sin is that it draws a veil over his goodness, whether for a moment of weakness or over a lifetime of rebellion. Even after we are born again — new heart, new eyes, new Spirit-filled appreciation for the beauty, wisdom, and power of God — Satan does everything he can to distract us from that glory, to convince us that God is really bland, simple, uninspiring, colorless. And because of his lies, many of us quietly dread heaven, wanting any future other than one of endless worship.

Woe to us, though, if we prefer the pleasures of this world to what is waiting for those who hope in God. And woe to us if God seems boring or simple next to the blessings, adventures, and relationships of this life. His goodness runs and weaves through all that we love here on earth, hinting at his vast and vibrant loveliness.

Many of us simply cannot fathom a God who never changes and yet always surprises and satisfies us. And yet he never does, and he always will.

Oh the Depths of God

After the apostle Paul finishes explaining the unexplainable, the sovereign purposes of God in choosing and saving whom he chooses and saves, he holds his arms up in humility and wonder:

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

“For who has known the mind of the Lord,

or who has been his counselor?”

“Or who has given a gift to him

that he might be repaid?”

For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. (Romans 11:33–36)

The God of those verses is simply incapable of boring us. Unsearchable, inscrutable, indescribable, he surpasses all our poor, thin, shortsighted expectations for beauty and pleasure. If we are bored with God, our hearts have been cooled by our own brokenness, not by any deficiency or limitation in him — because there is none.

He knows all there is to know, at all times and in all of history, about everything and everyone, including you. His wisdom unravels any and every decision and trouble with flawless judgment, perfect justice, matchless mercy, and infinite ease. His riches cannot be counted or stored, because there is nothing in any universe that is not already his. All things are from him, originating in his unrivaled creativity and supremacy, and through him, waiting moment by moment for his nourishing and sustaining power, and to him, revealing the height and depth of his worth.

“His greatness is unsearchable” (Psalm 145:3). Our God, as he really is, drowns any human imagination with awe.

Kindness Beyond Counting

We struggle to grasp or feel the wonder of God because our hearts are small, not because he and his love are. Listen to Paul stretch our language to try to describe the limitless and ever-growing goodness of God:

God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved — and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:4–7)

Rich in mercy. Great in love. Immeasurable in grace and kindness. This is the God we’re tempted to think small, boring, uninteresting. Even if we have walked with Jesus for seventy years or more, we’ve only just begun to smell the aroma of the banquet we will one day find in heaven.

And even when we’ve been there ten thousand years, having seen ten thousand years’ worth of good, each filled with their own memories and experiences of God, we still will have only dipped our toes into all we will yet see of him.

Only Ever Better

The wonder, though, is not only that God exceeds all our expectations, dreams, and longings, but that in all his glory, he chooses to love and save us — small, insignificant, defiant, dead. The life-giving, death-defying, world-spinning, galaxy-creating God saves those bored by him.

Why would a God of infinite holiness, infinite justice, infinite power, infinite love and mercy, infinite glory step down to revive and redeem people like us? Because he is not happy just to be immeasurably gracious and kind. He wants to showjust how gracious and kind he is — a grace and kindness beyond counting. We will trace the threads of his love for eternity, with thrilling and fulfilling views at every turn, and still never find the end. Never.

And that never is as liberating and exhilarating as any word in our language. Knowing that God will only ever get better, even on the other side of sin and death, frees us to learn and enjoy all we can of him today and every day he gives us.