Tag Archives: Psalm 8

Resting in His care..

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Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!.. who laid its cornerstone while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?

Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place, that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it?

Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been shown to you? Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness?

Does the rain have a father? Who fathers the drops of dew? From whose womb comes the ice?

Can you raise your voice to the clouds and cover yourself with a flood of water? Do you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’? …. Who has the wisdom to count the clouds? Who can tip over the water jar of the heavens?

(Job 38.4-7,12-13,16-17,28-29,34-35, 37)

Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens. Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?

You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honour. You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet: all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild, the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.

Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

(Ps 8)

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!.. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.

(1 Jn 3.1&4.9)

It has been a cold, wet spring, but I walked today in woods full of the song of small birds, a veil of fresh green covers the trees, the air was warm and the light strong to promote growth and life. I rejoiced in the signs of change, the reassurance that the rhythms which God has created continue at his command, and our world remains under his care.

For all power rests in his hands – no matter what the turmoil and tribulation of our planet might suggest – and we are the object of his love and affection; this beautiful world was made for us to care for in his name. It should be our joy and delight to live as careful stewards of all that is… I am so thankful for the freedom, health and strength to spend time outside in the countryside, appreciating the marvellous handiwork of our great God, and sharing my joy with him. I am encouraged in my spirit as I consider the detail of design, the boundless creativity, the heart-nourishing beauty, and thus my Lord and God sustains and refreshes me.

These past few months have been a testing season for me in many ways – with uncertainty over employment, over where we might live, over the jobs, health, and residence of family and friends. I have not found it easy to wait for the Lord to answer, not always appreciated the answers which he has given. I have been reminded again and again, that it is not I who orders all things for good, but God himself, and it is my part to trust him.

Many questions remain to be answered, with issues unresolved, uncertainties being prolonged; but I was reminded again today that I rest in the hands of the Lord, the maker and sustainer of all things, and that he calls me to trust in his love, wisdom and purposes in all that happens to me.

Lord God, when you spoke to Job of your power and the majesty of your creation, you did not answer his questions.. but you answered his spirit in its agony, and he found rest and peace as he worshipped you. Let me also rest in you; handing over my burdens to you and choosing to trust, praise and glorify you as much in uncertainty and confusion as in times of clarity, certainty and direction. Thank you, that the One who knows and loves me is the One who called the stars into being, and his power and love will never fail me! 

Can’t help myself!

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In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…And God said, “let there be light..let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear…let the land produce vegetation… let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night”…God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.

(Gen 1.1,3,9,11,14&31)

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise because of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is the son of man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honour.

(Ps 8.1-5)

My heart is steadfast, O God; I will sing and make music with all my soul. Awake, harp and lyre! I will awaken the dawn. I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples. For great is your love, higher than the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens, and let your glory be over all the earth.

(Ps 108.1-5)

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.

(James 1.17&18)

Do you ever think about praise as a means of defeating evil? That is how the psalmist describes it in Psalm 8, giving the voices of children raised in faith the power to advance God’s kingdom and silence the wicked! I love this, because it helps me to understand why it is always good to praise God, even when we are in trouble, weighed down by burdens of our own, or those of others.

When we declare in the face of the darkness that God is, that he is good, loving, faithful and utterly trustworthy, then the kingdom is being built. We may not see how God uses those statements of faith, sometimes whispered from breaking hearts, but he does.

And sometimes, in spite of the darkness in the world around us, we are simply prompted to praise by the beauty we see around us – and living where I do now, this happens very frequently! I sing with the psalmist, from a heart that overflows with delight, gratitude and deep joy, responding to the light, the colours, the sights, smells and sounds around me. I am so thankful to be alive today; so thankful for the physical strength which I have been given to move and work and play; deeply grateful for the mind and spirit which enable me to appreciate and grow in love for my God and all he has done.

God made it, and made it very good; and even all the consequences of human rebellion cannot disguise the vision of the creator, or take all the joy out of creation’s natural constant song of praise to its maker. The mountains and seas rejoice in their elements, the wind whispers and roars songs of praise; the trees and flowers of the field shout ‘Glory!’, and the creatures each in their place display his power, might, and delight in details and in the ridiculous.

I am made in God’s image, I share in some small way the delight which God has in all he has made – so that my joy in the beauty around me is a right and proper thing; a gift to be rejoiced in, and given thanks for. When I am gladdened, lifted up in my spirit, I sing thanksgivings in my heart to my Father God, and in sharing my joy, I am enriched and He is exalted because all the glory goes to Him.

Let me never neglect this ministry of rejoicing before my God, of fulfilling my debt of thanksgiving and praise, so that I might do my part in advancing his kingdom, standing against evil and proclaiming Christ’s victory. Let my voice not be silent among the chorus of creation, because I am both made and remade, I have double reason to shout alongside the trees, the birds, the glory of light upon the water and the wind over the moors!

Shout with joy, all my being rejoice and sing before your Lord and King; exult in his goodness and acknowledge in all things that He is God!

But what am I, a mere mortal ?

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When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers – the moon and the stars that you set in place – what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them?

(Ps 8. 3&4)

For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

(Eph 2. 10)

Breathtaking, isn’t it? And I am not just referring to the picture – sunset over the Lake of Galilee, a symphony of colour and grandeur! We rightly wonder at the diversity, majesty and beauty of the creation around us, and revere the Creator whose power and unsearchable wisdom brought it all into being. But even more, we should be struck dumb at the realisation that in the great story of creation, the human race was the pinnacle, all was brought into being in order to give us a home, a place to share with one another and above all one which would reveal God’s greatness to us as we shared fellowship with him.

The great narrative of scripture puts us in pride of place at the climax of creation, the only beings which God created to reflect his character, and into which he breathed life. We know very well that our rebellion against our loving God led us out of fellowship with him, that the image in us was scarred almost beyond recognition, and the world around us was broken by our sin. And yet, in spite of all this, the bible is adamant that our proper place remains as the crown of creation, the apple of God’s eye, his greatest handiwork.

From the moment when God confronted Adam and Eve with their sin and spelled out its consequences, his plan was being revealed, a rescue plan, and one which would result in even greater glory to God than if we had never sinned, never needed saving! It takes a great craftsman to produce a work of art, and an even greater one to take a desperately flawed and spoiled thing and make of it something beautiful and useful. Our God is the great craftsman, the one for whom nothing is too broken to be restored to wholeness, and for whom no amount of painstaking labour is too much.

How is it that we can be made beautiful again, restored to bearing the image of God and sharing fellowship with him? It is all his work, and all through the way in which we are united with Jesus by God when we trust in the power of his death to wipe away our sin. As Paul says earlier in that chapter of Ephesians :- ” So God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness towards us, as shown in all he has done for us who are united with Christ Jesus. God saved you by his grace when you believed.” (Eph 2.8)

Praise be to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for his saving power, and his great love, which he pours out on us, so that we may live new lives, free from the guilt and power of sin! What good news we have to share of an Eternal Father’s love, a Saviour’s blood to cleanse and a Holy Spirit’s power active in our lives to make the fact of our new nature more and more a daily reality.

As I allow the truth revealed in the bible to soak into my mind, applying it like a filter to every view of life, I will see things more and more the way God sees them. This is the transforming of my mind, my thoughts, so that I am increasingly aligned with the unseen realities, with the truths which underlie our lives instead of the lies and myths which our culture imposes on us. The devil would love to keep me blind to the truth, hobbled by a sense of my own past failures, and present weakness; to keep me doubting God and afraid to ask for his help because I fear that he really doesn’t care about me. I need to keep on returning my gaze to the stars, the heavens above and the wonders all around, and saying to myself:- “Lord, your handiwork is great, I am humbled by your power and majesty, but I choose to believe that in Christ, I am a masterpiece in your hands, that you look upon me with delight, and that I have purpose and a place in this world and in your family.”