by Lisa Caine

Psalm 8: O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth. You have set your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouths of babes and infants you have founded a bulwark because of your foes, to silence the enemy and the avenger. 

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 take care for them. 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, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the seas. O Lord our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth.

God is the great Creator. Genesis tells us that God hovered over the formless void and the darkness that covered the face of the deep. And then God began creating, separating light from dark, heavens from earth, water from dry land, creating stars and heavens, the birds and fish, the animals, and finally humankind, whom God invited to be co-creators, tending all that had been made and making sure it grew and thrived.  Psalm 8 celebrates this special responsibility of human beings to care for all that God has created. What part of God’s creation calls to the creative spirit within you? What makes you think “God” when you see the “work of [God’s] fingers”? Do you ever think of God in the darkness? That’s where creation began.

Prayer: 
For the beauty of the earth, for the glory of the skies,
For the love which from our birth over and around us lies;
Lord of all to thee we raise, this our hymn of grateful praise.
For the joy of ear and eye, for the heart and mind’s delight,
For the mystic harmony, linking sense to sound and sight;
Lord of all to thee we raise, this our hymn of grateful praise.
Amen.