2005-07-24 - Your Heavens

Psalm 8, Part 1

One of the things, as I was growing up, that my grandfather and I did on a regular basis was to go to the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. And the thing that I enjoyed most about those visits was the Planetarium show. In those days, they changed the program every month, and so we went once a month.

As I got older, I continued to go on my own and then took astronomy classes there at the center. It was my dream to eventually become an astronomer and be one of the first to work at an observatory on the moon. Of course when I got to college, I found that although I was passing basic Physics, Calculus and German, I would never get through the advanced classes. And it was just as well, because we still don't have an observatory on the moon, and by the time we do, I'll be much too old to go anyway.

But I still like to go to the Planetarium. And one of the reasons is because for me it is a house of worship. It is there I can see the night sky in a way that I can't, even in Roseville. And as I look up at the sky and see the stars and the moon and the planets, I really come to understand the majesty and the infiniteness of our God. I also come to understand that considering just how small I am in the universe at large, nevertheless the Creator loved me enough to take on the form of man and pay the price for my sins.

It is there in that darkened star theater, I can say with David; "When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, ... " It is when we face the infinite universe that we come to understand the majesty of God, and just how much He truly loves us, by being willing to take on this finite form.

As we grow in our understanding of God, we stand firm in our faith. It is only those who don't know Him who can believe in their own godhood. When faced with the infinite Universe, the infinite and all powerful God, we know that "We're Not God!" Instead we are driven to our knees to worship, praise and obey the God who loves us, "the God who is there."

Psalm 8

For the director; upon the gittith. A psalm of David.

² O Yahweh our Lord, How glorious is your name through all the earth!
I will adore your majesty above the heavens,
With the lips of striplings and sucklings.
³ You built a fortress for your habitation,
having silenced your adversaries, the foe and the avenger.
⁴ When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers,
The moon and the stars which you created:
⁵ What is man that you should think of him,
or the son of man that you should care for him?
⁶ Yet you have made him a little less than the gods,
with honor and glory you crowned him.
⁷ You gave him dominion over the works of your hands,
put all things at his feet.
⁸ Small and large cattle--all of them,
yes, even the beasts of the steppe.
⁹ The birds of heaven, and the fishes in the sea,
whatever crosses the routes of the seas.
¹⁰ O Yahweh our Lord,
how glorious is your name through all the earth! ¹

¹ Dahood, Mitchell, The Anchor Bible, "Psalms 1", Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1978, p. 48.

To be continued.

Questions or Comments?
Geoff

GKragen@aol.com
http://www.cfdevotionals.org