No, I am not talking about us being obedient and doing things God’s way, rather, I am thinking about us understanding God’s way of doing things. What we might call His modus operandi, his pattern, his style, his method.
Some people might argue that God is totally unpredictable and unknowable, that’s what makes him God but that is not what the Bible says. God says of himself “I am the Lord, I change not” and in another place “I am the same, yesterday, today and forever.” Even a casual study of God’s creation would lead you to think that God is a god of order, of pattern, of style. Not that there isn’t an amazing variety of style and pattern in the creation but creation itself, the earth and the universe around it runs on tracks. It is governed by unchanging laws. Gravity, thermodynamics, magnetism are unchanging. They always work in the same way. Our technological advances come from us learning how they work, learning the way of magnetism, the way of atomic power etc.
In a similar way I believe God wants us to understand His way. Ps 67:2 says “That thy way may be known in the earth, thy saving health among the nations.” The hebrew word for ‘known’ is ‘yada’ which signifies an experiential knowing, a discovering, a perceiving of something. It’s the kind of knowing that happens when two or more facts come together in your heart and the penny drops. Call it revelation if you like, it’s that kind of knowing. It’s when you ’see’ it. It was always there but you didn’t see it before and now you do. When you discover something about God in this way, you have discovered something that will always be true, it never changes because He does not change, you have discovered something of God’s way.
Here in Ps 67:2 is such a revelation. Hebrew poetry rhymes not words but ideas, not the sound of the words but the meanings of them. Sometimes it compares one thing in contrast to another, sometimes it mirrors them. Sometimes it builds on the first thought by expressing the same truth in a different way. That’s what is happening here.
“That your way my be known in the earth” is the first part.
“Your saving health (or salvation) among the nations” is the second part.
Here is the revelation, put them together. God’s way is salvation. God’s way is saving health. The hebrew word translated salvation or ’saving health’ is ‘yeshua’ which is the hebrew form of Jesus. His name means ’salvation’. Jesus said of himself “I am the Way” “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father”. (That’s the kind of seeing we thought about before.) The angel said to Mary, “You shall call his name Jesus (yeshua) for he shall save His people from their sins.” His name means salvation or Saviour because that is who he is. He lives up to his name.
Salvation, well being in body, soul and spirit, is God’s way, God’s will. Don’t doubt it. See it.