There’s a Jewish saying: “In order to describe God, one would have to be God.” Even though we use words like “holy” or “righteous” or “Father” to help shape our understanding of God, we do so with the knowledge that these words are mere place holders. They’re paper and straw. They fail to articulate the reality of God in totality. To accurately describe something is to tame it, to contain it. The Hebrews seemed to have an understanding of their God that was much broader than their ability to describe.

The Hebrews used the word kavod to express God’s “glory”, the external manifestation of His being. But the word also carries with it the meaning of “weight” or “heaviness”. It’s as if the Hebrew people understood that to truly comprehend the glory of God was to be crushed by its weightiness. We understand enough about God to comprehend how incomprehensible He is. This is why Moses is not allowed to see God’s face / glory (Exodus 33:18-20). To apprehend the fullness of His glory is to be crushed by the weight.

How do we describe the One who defies description?

How can language fully contain the uncontainable God?

Which of our words can bear that kind of freight, the glory weight of God?

On one level, all worship, all preaching, all teaching, all conversation about God is an exercise in futility because all worship, all preaching, all teaching, and all conversation about God fails to do Him justice. They are incomplete expressions of His glory, His being. Again, He is indescribable. To even say that God is “indescribable” woefully undersells His indescribability.

Now my head hurts.

And yet…we have the God-given gift of language and with that gift we express our praise. As we sing, “we will use the words we know to tell you what an awesome God you are / but words are not enough to tell you of our love / so listen to our hearts.” Feeble and frail though they may be, these words represent our best efforts to articulate what we feel in our hearts when we think of our great God. As deep calls out to deep, so do our hearts call out to your heart, O God.

Lord, please accept these words. Compared to your kavod weight, they are but a pittance. And yet, we bring this offering, this widow’s mite to You. For it is all we have to bring. And to whom else shall we go?