Scripture Reading(s)
Psalm 8
8:1 O LORD, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.
8:2 Out of the mouths of babes and infants you have founded a bulwark because of your foes, to silence the enemy and the avenger.
8:3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established;
8:4 what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?
8:5 Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.
8:6 You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet,
8:7 all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field,
8:8 the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
8:9 O LORD, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Reflections
Imagine for a second that you are standing under a dark sky full of stars and attempting to count them all one by one. I recall one summer night, I was at camp and we had the chance to sit on the dock out on the lake and when you looked up, it was if you had forgotten for a moment that you were standing on solid ground. God’s creation is so magnificent and powerful. It speaks to God’s loving hand and design to carefully and intimately create the earth. All nature and creation were created to give God back the Glory. This Psalm paints a beautiful picture of how awesome His creation is. Verses 3-4 provide a profound lyrical description of a comparison between the big and the small, and yet God’s hand cares equally for every single living thing that He has created.
I love how also in verse 4 the question is asked “what is man that you are mindful of him?” Yet, when you look at the original account of creation in Genesis, man was created to rule and take responsibility over the earth. How amazing it is to know that our God chooses to use us humans to do His work. Out of all creation, the Bible speaks to the fact that His love is so deeply rooted in the fact that He chose to make us in His image. Genesis 1:27 describes this very idea “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
God’s fingerprint is marked throughout all of creation and when you stop to think of the magnitude of God’s Glory and power being manifested in every area of our world including the details of our lives, we can then shout out as the Psalmist did “O LORD, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”
It is hard to imagine how big and powerful God is without also coming face to face with how minuscule and insignificant we humans are. Yet our God has not regarded us as such. Nay, quite the opposite. He bestows upon us a portion of His own glory and honor (8:5).
If that was not enough, he also blesses us with his grace; knowing that we are imperfect and in no way worthy of bearing God’s image. Yet, despite our imperfections He still cares for us. In fact, he cares for us so much that he even knows the number of hairs on our heads. There is nothing about us that has been over-looked by God. Just as God knows every star in the sky He also know your every pain, your every stress, all your aggravations, all your fears, and he feels all your sorrows.