The God with the big nose

There are two things that are true of most men in my family line: we live a long time and we have big noses. I don’t mean Pinocchio big, but a “larger than most” big. Throw in the fact that noses appear to never stop growing, and that long life doesn’t help the issue.

(Side note for the smart kids in the room: despite the old myth, our noses actually do stop growing, but because the nose is made of cartilage and that breaks down, they can start to sag as we age and look bigger. Your ear lobes do the same thing. It’s just another thing to look forward to as you grow up.)

But this morning I realized that my nose could be one of the things about me that is the most like God. According to Exodus 34:6, God has a big nose, too, and that’s good news for me and you and the other 7.9 billion people alive as I write this. Like our 7.9 billion neighbors, you probably can’t pull up the verse from your memory banks, so I’ll do that for you. In that verse, we find God announcing Himself to Moses, kind of like an MC introducing a boxer.

And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, (Exodus 34:6, emphasis mine)

The phrase “slow to anger” is a Hebrew phrase (“arek ap”) that literally translates as “long nostril” or “long nose.”

God has a big nose and if you stop and think about it, it’s a wonderful thing. When you and I get angry, what are we told to do? Take a deep breath and then count to 10 s-l-o-w-l-y, right? It’s the long breath that helps calm the tension so we don’t lose it and go off on the cute toddler who won’t … stop … asking … why!

Don’t you love the word picture from our verse? So many people picture God as an angry old man with a short fuse ready to punish us with lightning bolts and mosquitoes, and yet the Bible reveals a God with long nostrils Who takes deep breaths so He can exhale grace and patience.

It doesn’t mean He never gets angry (we’ll save that for another post on another day), but it does mean that He is slow to get angry, and surely slower than you and me. And that, friend, is really good news.

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