O Lord our God, the majesty and glory of your name fills all the earth and overflows the heavens. 2 You have taught the little children to praise you perfectly. May their example shame and silence your enemies!
3 When I look up into the night skies and see the work of your fingers—the moon and the stars you have made— 4 I cannot understand how you can bother with mere puny man, to pay any attention to him!
5 And yet you have made him only a little lower than the angels and placed a crown of glory and honor upon his head.
6 You have put him in charge of everything you made; everything is put under his authority: 7 all sheep and oxen, and wild animals too, 8 the birds and fish, and all the life in the sea. 9 O Jehovah, our Lord, the majesty and glory of your name fills the earth. (Living Bible)
When we were children, my mother would occasionally wake us to see meteor showers or view the constellations. The quiet darkness revealed a beauty many people sleep through. (I woke my kids, too, but by then light pollution made it hard to see much.)
**********
Years later, we were guests at a lake home in northern Wisconsin. Our hosts were in the habit of walking out each evening to see the stars. There I realized what David must have seen when he wrote this psalm: a sky thickly coated with lights, the Milky Way clearly visible.
As we watched, a satellite crossed the field; one, then another, then another. And I thought: how insignificant was humanity’s contribution to the heavens. Yet how proud we were of that achievement!
We read that the Creator God of the heavens gave humankind the authority over this planet and everything in it. Such generosity takes my breath away.
Then, with greater generosity still, Majesty made a way for all to receive redemption and reconciliation! The only possible use for any breath we may have left after that? “O Lord our God, the majesty and glory of your name fills all the earth and overflows the heavens!”
What surprises me most about God is that the creator of the universe should want a relationship with me. – Rick Warren
**********
This psalm has been set to music: