Power and Love

I made a discovery the other day as I was reading from Revelation chapter 4 about the throne of God. Certain passages in the Bible I like to return to often and try to visualize and dig into and ask questions around. This is one of them. God is sitting on a throne. Angels and various creatures around Him. What does all this mean? In verse 5 it talks about seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God. God's seven Spirits? What is that? I have always heard you should let scripture explain scripture. Well, Isaiah chapter 11 verse 2 tells us what the seven Spirits of God are:

Spirit of the Lord Spirit of wisdom Spirit of understanding Spirit of counsel Spirit of might Spirit of knowledge Spirit of the fear of the Lord

And then verse 3 adds for good measure: His delight is in the fear of the Lord. This is all good! But still... As I was meditating on those words they all seemed a bit hard, masculine, authoritative, very much like you would describe a king in those days. They are power words. But what about all the soft, feminine side of Gods, his loving, caring, tender, gentle ways? It was then I made the discovery (in verse 3) that blew me away.

And the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and ruby. A rainbow that shone like an emerald encircled the throne.

The rainbow - God's love, goodness, faithfulness, loving-kindness, mercy, grace, gentleness etc is all around Him, shining like emerald. He is a king, but He is a loving Father. As He reigns in power, He does it in perfect love, even humility. The rainbow is all around Him. I don't know how He does it. We can keep on meditating on this forever. King David wrote about it in Psalm 62:

"One thing God has spoken, two things I have heard: “Power belongs to you, God, and with you, Lord, is unfailing love”