God can use the vastness of creation to show us that we are valuable to Him.
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon, and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?
On a starry night, David looked up at the sky and remembered the smallness of humanity. What is a person when you consider the immensity of the moon? Why do you care about such detail for human beings in ways that even the angels don’t understand? David looks at something so large it made it clear how significant we are to God. Even at night, God can use the vastness of creation to show us that we are valuable to Him.
Armadillidium vulgare. Pillbug. We called them roly-polies where I grew up (although I’m not certain of the spelling; it may be the east coast roly-poly.) My eight-year-old mind thought they were wandering around aimlessly but apparently, they were eating meals and cleaning the ground. I’d pick them up and watch them show off by rolling into a ball, not knowing the intricate structure of this crustacean (apparently they are not insects, who knew?) was a protective mechanism for their bodies. I did not understand it, but I marveled at them in wonder. How can something so small and delicate also be so intricately designed and so strong?
It is not a small thing to consider that perhaps David was shepherding at night and became an astronomer. He looked up at a really clear sky and saw the incredible moon and stars and arrived at the same conclusion of wonder. I love Howard Thurman’s quote in Meditations of the Heart: “Whatever may be the tensions and the stresses of a particular day, there is always lurking close at hand the trailing beauty of forgotten joy or unremembered peace.”
It is one thing to recognize the worth of something, to turn it over and over in our hands and take in all of its intricacies. But it’s another thing when your wonder leads you to question your own value. Have you ever gazed at something so long you remember how small we are? On a starry night, David looked up at the sky and remembered the smallness of humanity. What is a person when you consider the immensity of the moon? God, why do you care about such detail for human beings in ways that even the angels don’t understand? David looks at something so large it made it clear how significant we are to God.
It is wonderful to recognize that God can find us wherever we may be and use the ordinary and often ignored parts of creation to remind us how great He is. And he can do this even at night, or even in really massive dark moments in life. The result is not a smallness that causes us to shudder in fear but leads us down the lighted path of peace.
Awe in God’s majesty gives us hope and clarity that while things may be dark now, they will not always be.
Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor. You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet.
We have lost our sense of what it means to be a little less than the angels and we are always coming up short of dominion over creation. But David’s awe in God makes him speak with a certainty that it will be true. Awe in God’s majesty gives us hope and clarity that while things may be dark now, they will not always be.
When we become in awe of God, we do not just see the present circumstances. We sing psalms of hope.
David says that we are a little lower than angels and crowned with glory and honor. But humanity knows its frailty. We know we haven’t stood without condemnation since Genesis 3. We’ve been hiding behind trees and sewing fig leaves. None of us has a reputation worth bragging about. We are just less than the angels—but Noah struggled, Abraham was inept at pleading with God to save a city from destruction, Jeremiah tells us that the heart is wicked, and Malachi said we would rob God.
David also said we have dominion over our hands and all the animals are under our feet. But we run from spiders, fear lions, and tigers, and would willingly give up our lunch box to bears if we could survive. We exert a lot of energy to have just a little dominion over animals when it seems that we simply could name them and they would obey.
It may seem like an error—but David is accurate because his awe is in God. The psalm is emphatic that the Lord, Our Lord, is excellent in all the earth. David is in awe that, while things are dark now and we do not get a full sense of glory and honor and dominion, there is still a hopeful expectation. David was in the dark and tending to sheep. But we know more clearly. We know and hope for the day where we won’t struggle—where we are headed toward a renewed city, are converging on new hearts and everything we will do will be directed to God. We know this because our good shepherd is indeed the “Lord, Our Lord, how excellent is His name in all the earth.” And when He is given a name above every name, we get the incorrupt inheritance. There will be a day where we won’t worry about spiders, and all the work of our hands will be flawless also.
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