Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name

Psalm 8:1-4 (NIV)

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?

My favorite Christian musician is Michael W. Smith.  I have purchases nearly all of his albums.  My iPod contains about 150 of his songs.  He’s an incredible Christian composer, not only recording his own songs, but also writing songs for other Christian artists.  One of his songs came from Psalm 8:1 that Sandi Patty recorded in 1981.  I cannot read this verse without hearing Sandi Patty’s voice and the lush orchestral sounds in the background. 

I live near a golf course and often walk on the cart pathways at night when the only lights I see are the stars (and moon if it is full or near full).  I think of Psalm 8:3-4, the work of God’s fingers in establishing the moon and the stars.  I think about King David writing this Psalm well over 3,000 years ago, seeing the same moon and stars as we see today.  When you gaze at the heavens, and, especially, when you read astronomical facts such as some of the stars being so far away that the light from them takes million of years to reach us, David’s words about God being mindful of and caring about you and me reaches the incomprehensible.

Do you ever think about your insignificance compared to God’s infinite greatness?  King David did.  He wrote this Psalm expressing his thoughts about how almighty God could care about lowly mankind.  If Psalm 8 ended with verse 4 then indeed you would be depressed.  However, if you read the remainder of Psalm 8 you find that God made man to be a little lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honor, and put in charge of everything God has made.  Man is significant in God’s eyes.  You should never, ever think of yourself as insignificant in God’s creation.  Even if you believe that you are insignificant from a worldly standpoint---and, indeed, most of us are---you are to set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on the earth (Col 3:2) and always realize that God considers you significant in His creation. 

“God made man to be the expression of God’s life, the human vehicle of the divine life, the means by which the invisible God would be made visible to His creatures.  Man was to be the instrument by which God would do His work in the world and the expression of the character and being of God"—Ray Stedman