Psalm 103:13

Reflection

God's compassion is likened to a father's heart. It draws on the familiar feeling of a father's tenderness toward a child to describe God — not a distant, abstract deity, but the picture of a father holding his child.

The object of compassion is "those who fear Him." Fear here is not trembling dread but a reverence that looks up from within love. It resembles the place of a child who finds the father awesome yet trusts his embrace.

If judgment is the first thing that comes to mind when you've stumbled, this verse changes the picture. A father's first heart toward a fallen child is tenderness. That tenderness turns toward you.