f you’ve ever gazed up at the night skies, you can understand why a young shepherd boy in the Judean wilderness wrote these words. For when David cried out to Yahweh, it was not to an inaccessible or hidden God at all, but to One who has offered Himself in a radical act of self-revelation so as to be known by all. 

He began thus by acknowledging God’s majesty or ‘addir, a word used to refer to the waters of the sea, an enormous tree, a mighty ship, as well as kings, nobles, and nations. And he then observed that this God has set his glory or kabowd above the heavens, and that word too is a loaded one, literally coming from a root that means “weight.” 

It’s no wonder then why whenever Jonathan Edwards wished to speak about God and His glory that he did so by telling of the “excellency of Christ.” 

Think, for example, of something so simple as the “golden mean” that appears throughout nature– in flower patterns, the leaves of an artichoke, even the ratio of each successive bone in our fingers. For when translated onto a graph, it’s the exact same shape you will find replicated in seashells, pine cones, sunflowers, the coil of the ocean’s waves and the expanse of those galaxies in the sky! 

Our God is a God of wonders indeed!

But here’s the truly astounding part of what David had to say: out of all the wonders of God’s creation, you and I are the greatest.

For God has made us just a little lower than the angels, crowning us with the same kind of honor or kabowd which He Himself bears.  Or to put it another way, we are all designer made. 

So if anyone ever says we’re insignificant or unimportant or useless, they are lying, for God has already said just the opposite. In fact, no matter what others may tell us or even what we may tell ourselves, we’re not nobodies because we were made by the ultimate Somebody Himself.

Go outside tonight thus and take a good look at all those stars if you can, the heavens which God has set in place. And then remember that God is thinking just of you at this very moment.  I have a feeling you’ll end up proclaiming just how majestic God’s name is in all the earth, too.

Dr. Chappell Temple is Senior Pastor of Christ United Methodist Church in Sugarland, Texas (near Houston). If you are ever in the area, Chap and the rest of the congregation would love to have you come worship with them.

Falling into the Psalms is brought to you by the Communications Department of the Texas Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. To be considered as a future blogger, please contact Shannon W. Martin, Director of Communication at .