Canter Bridge

Strength and speed rightly draw admiring eyes.

Whether stallion, sprinter, swimmer, striker, or wide receiver, the ripple of muscled thigh and the cheetah-esque capacity to finish are awe-inspiring. Such forceful, fluid athleticism commends itself. It needs little added praise.

Yet YHWH is relatively unimpressed by all this, though not because he discerns any less the beauty of it than we do. Rather, as the psalmist would have us both recognize and celebrate, his pleasure in a less self-evident human condition places his presumed delight in both horse and runner in its shadow:

His delight is not in the strength of the horse,
nor his pleasure in the speed of a runner;
but the LORD takes pleasure in those who fear him,
in those who hope in his steadfast love. (Psalm 147:10-11 NRSV)

Portions of the Bible are reticent to speak directly about the Lord’s pleasure. Against a pagan backdrop of divine mischief, this reserve is understandable. Yet the composer of the song we know as the one hundred forty-seventh psalm shelves any reluctance and strides confidently to the heart of the matter.

The Lord is moved to something like the cheers that fill a football stadium or a horse track when he observes the unlikely performance of ‘those who fear him … those who hope in his steadfast love’.

In place of musculature, dependence. Instead of velocity, patient confidence.

Such is the athleticism of life in YHWH’s company. In such things and in those who practice them his attention inevitably, incessantly finds its object.