HEBREW WORD STUDY – DEAL BOUNTIFULLY –  GIMMEL – גמל    

Psalms 13:6: “I will sing unto the Lord because He has dealt bountifully with me.”

If the Lord would deal a little bountifully with me I might be doing a little singing. Of course with my musical talents or lack thereof, I could clear a room pretty quickly when I start to sing. Still, I would express my gratitude in some way if God should deal bountifully with me. But lately bountifully has not been the best adverb to use in my life. Lucky for David, he gets to have the Lord deal bountifully with him. So where is my piece of the pie?

As this verse has absolutely no meaning for me at this time I will need to go to some other possible usages of the word bountifully and see if there is one which fits my case. So let’s see, the word bountifully in Hebrew is gamal. This is a word used for weaning a child. Weaning a child is a sign of maturing, of not being so dependent upon the mother. In a way, it is almost the opposite of what you think of when you think of bountiful. The bountifulness of the mother’s nourishment is no longer necessary; the child is free to explore new options of nourishment.  So really it is a good thing to receive gamal or bountifulness from God.  It shows that you are ready to move on to bigger and better things.

Too often Christians are just not ready for this bountifulness from God.  They are satisfied to remain that infant in God.  I have met people who have been Christians for twenty and thirty years who have not accepted God’s offer of gamal being bountifully blessed by God.  Then they wonder why they get bored in their Christian walk, why the same milk of the Word does not excite them anymore. Why the praise and worship service just doesn’t have the punch it used to.  They assume it is the fault of the church so they leave.

I’ve met a number of church tramps in my day. They bounce from church to church looking for that church where they can really praise the Lord and feel His presence. I remember I met a guy who had been bouncing around from church to church.  I thought he had finally found a church home, but a few months later I ran into him and asked how it was going in that church.  The guy said: “Oh, I left that church. The pastor started off good, I was really feeling the presence of the Lord but then he changed and he quenched the Spirit because I could no feel God’s presence in that church anymore.”  I knew this pastor and knew him to be a real man of God who had not changed at all.  However, this guy probably was about to be blessed with gamal, bountifulness, or weaned off the milk and ready for the meat, but he still wanted that milk. I have this really bad habit of speaking before I think and I told him I had just read was a Christian in Iran who was thrown into prison for his faith and he told how he felt the presence of God in that prison and was able to really praise and worship God in that prison.  I suggested he might want to try that prison. Needless to say, that did not go over well.

Ok, maybe God has not dealt bountifully with me in the way I want a bountiful. But then, maybe the mere fact that He is not dealing with me bountifully in my definition might mean He is dealing with me bountifully in the gamal or Semitic sense.  Maybe God is saying, “Come on old boy, you are long past those things which you think are bountiful, I could give it to you but that will not be what you really want. Come on, step into your next level of maturity, and discover what it is that you are really seeking.”  To David when God dealt bountifully with him it was weaning him off those petty miracles and little signs that he always depended upon to be reminded that God was with him. That was old school.

Are you bored with your church and with the worship?  Maybe God is trying to gamal wean you off of that and bring you into something new and exciting. You don’t need to leave the church to find it, God may have it just sitting there waiting for you right where you are at. It just takes a little faith like that of David.

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