Proverbs 16:4 “The LORD hath made all [things] for himself.
From first reading of this passage it would appear that God is a very selfish God. But then the word selfish tends to carry a negative connotation. There is a positive spin on selfishness. Do we not purchase a gift for someone for selfish reasons, because we long to express our love for that person? We do it because it makes us feel good. So what is wrong with that? Not all selfishness is bad there is a good kind of selfishness.
The word made is curious in the Hebrew. It is not the usual word that you find that is rendered for making as in producing or creating something which would be ‘anah. This is the word pa’al which is working for a reward or commission. We would use the word employment. I remember when I was working in building construction and my foreman handed me my check and said, “Well, this is what it is all about.” I thought, “Isn’t it about building these houses, the feeling of accomplishment, the chance to use the muscles God gave me and to exercise my brain? But when it came down to it, I would not be on the job site for one moment if I did not get that envelop at the end of the week. The bottom line was that if I was going to eat and keep a roof over my head, I had to work and as it was this particular job was available to meet that need.
The word things is not in the text, it is simply God made all lama’anehu which literally means for His answering. Actually, the word lama’anehu is a word for producing something. It is your common Hebrew word for making or working which is ‘anah. Yet, when you trace this word to its Semitic root you find it has the idea of an impartation. It is like Jimmy Durante once said when he asked a friend, “Who are you working for?” His friend replied, “The same people, the wife and the kids.” The English translation does not go far enough by saying that the Lord has made all things for Himself. That is true but the word ‘anah suggest even more. God is working, laboring for his own pleasure but His pleasure is in being able to impart the blessings of his labor to us. Just as a man goes to work every day to provide for his family for he finds joy and pleasure in his family and all the fruits of his labor are passed on to his family so he can enjoy their love and draw pleasure from their pleasure.
I remember as a pastor I was asked by the children of an elderly woman to speak with their mother and try to convince her that it would be the best thing for her to sell her house and move into a retirement community. Her husband had passed away and she was alone in the house and it was really just too much for her to maintain. I felt this was a good idea as she would really be more comfortable in a retirement community. Yet, as I spoke with this woman, I began to change my thinking on this matter. This woman told me how her husband had built that house when they were first married. Throughout their marriage he would continue to add and make improvements on the house all which were for the expressed purpose of pleasing her. The house, its additions and improvements were all to meet her desires in a house and not his. Then she got up and walked to a wall and touched the wall and said, “Don’t you see, every wall, every door, every window was built for me, every wall, every door and every window is my husband saying to me, “I love you.” Every morning when we would get up my husband would say to me, “I love you.” He is gone now but he has left me this house that he built for me and now every morning when I wake up in this house he is still saying to me, “I love you.”
What I find Proverbs 16:4 telling me is that, yes God made everything for Himself. He made it for Himself so that he could have feel the joy and the pleasure of saying “I love you.” His greatest joy and His greatest pleasure comes in being able to say, “I love you.” He longed for the chance to say “I love you.” So he created us and breathed into us his very breath of life so that He could have someone that he would be able to say, “I love you.” Every tree, every blade of grass, every little squirrel that runs up to you, looks at you and runs away, every bird on your porch that sings and dance is God saying to you, “I love you.” God built this world, all of His creation to be our home for a short time, the time of our engagement or betrothal to Him. During out engagement period or our betrothal period we are living in this world filled with all his pa’al works, that he ‘anah made to impart his love. As we spend our years in this home that he built for us surrounded by all the examples of his love, as he send His birds to sing to us, his trees to wave to us in the winds, his rains to refresh us and His sun to strengthen us we grow more and more in love with Him as a young woman grows more and more in love with her betrothed during her year of betrothal to the point that she just cannot stand being alone without him so that one night her beloved comes for her and takes her to her father’s house and consummates their marriage.
So too as we live in this world during our betrothal period to God we grow more and more in love with Him and every day through His pa’al works of creation he tells us that He loves us. As He keeps telling us how much He loves us we reach the point that we just can ‘t stand being alone anymore so that one night Jesus will come and take us to live in His Father’s house. We will then be allowed to consummate our marriage with Him and spend eternity living in His heart.
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