Better

"Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you." Psalm 63:3

I read that, and I can't comprehend it sometimes. Most times. Your steadfast love is BETTER THAN LIFE! Better than being alive. The love of God is better than the whole of life. That statement is huge.
And it seems so simple. Of course God's love is better than life. Life is sadness, we are here in the midst of a time where sin runs rampant on the streets. We live in a place where there is sadness, pain, loss, death, anger, hate. We live in a world where hatred is so strong that seven years ago some people hijacked airplanes and ran them into buildings. We live in a world so heinous that war is not only a constant, but it is also a billion dollar industry. We live in a world where people are bought and sold as though they are things, as though they are less than human. We value money more than love, power over peace, security over justice. We live in a world that screams that life is the best thing there is.
Your steadfast love. Steadfast. It means immovable. The love of God is steadfast, it will never move, indeed it isn't able to. He loves us so much! And that love, it is better than life.
Life can be good. We can find ways to enjoy it. I can list of a seemingly infinite list of all the crap about life that drags me down, and I listed a bit of it above. At the same time I can list so much more that life has to bring us some form of joy. Every blade of grass, every star, every breeze, each drop of rain, all of it is beautiful. Every person that brings a smile to my lips just to think about or to see. These things that are part of life, they are great and I am thankful for them.
Even still, God's steadfast love is better than life. It isn't even close. Not that life is so bad or so good, but it is that God is infinitely greater than all we can know or imagine! God is so much better than life. Every time I read this, it gets to me. One verse, but so powerful.
I consider all the actions I take in a day that seems to be my confession to the opposite; that I love life more than God, that I think it is better. I only need to take one second to remember that is not true. That the steadfast love of God, the God of the universe, who is and was and ever will be, who chose me and set me apart before creation, not for any good I had done or ever would do, but simply because He loved me according to His sovereign purpose, that this God, the God of all creation loves me with a steadfast love! Yeah, that is better than life. And I thank God for that love every day.