Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

In you, Lord, I have taken refuge;
    let me never be put to shame;
    deliver me in your righteousness.
Turn your ear to me,
    come quickly to my rescue;
be my rock of refuge,
    a strong fortress to save me.
Since you are my rock and my fortress,
    for the sake of your name lead and guide me.
Keep me free from the trap that is set for me,
    for you are my refuge.
Into your hands I commit my spirit;
    deliver me, Lord, my faithful God.

• Psalm 31:1-5

The heavens declare the glory of God;
    the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
    night after night they reveal knowledge.
They have no speech, they use no words;
    no sound is heard from them.
Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
    their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun.

• Psalm 19:1-4

“The Scripture proclaims God to be the Creator of heaven and earth. Many Psalms summon us to bring him honor, praise, and thanksgiving. There is, however, no single Psalm which speaks only of the creation. It is always the God who has already revealed himself to his people in his word who is said to be known as the Creator of the world. Because God has spoken to us, because God’s name has been revealed to us, we can believe in him as the Creator. Otherwise we could not now him. The creation is a picture of the power and the faithfulness of God, which he has demonstrated to us in his revelation in Jesus Christ. We worship the Creator who has revealed himself as he Redeemer.”

• Dietrich Bonhoeffer, psalms, The Prayer Book of the Bible

Dietrich Bonhoeffer invents a new way to look at the Psalms at this point.  After all, his book is about using the Psalter as a prayer book.  Didactic, prophetic, psalms of thanksgiving, praise, historical psalms, etc. do not always fit.  His breakdown starts with Creation.  Then subsequent topics will be the Law, Holy History, the Messiah, the Church, Life, Suffering, Guilt, the Enemies, and the End.  There are only two topics once he has covered his breakdown, one topic at a time.

And he speaks of the inadequacies of his classifications in the first topic.  Yes, there are psalms that speak of God, the creator, either directly or indirectly, but the psalm rarely sticks to that topic.  If I were to pick one, I would pick the same one that he did, Psalm 19.

In understanding the magnitude of God’s Creation, it humbles us.

As we ourselves are humbled, we start to understand the awesome responsibility that we have.  We are to bring our little problems to God, the Creator of the universe.  God could snap His fingers and remove our tiny problems from the face of the earth, but God really likes talking with us.

God loves us.  He listens to us.  He does indeed have infinite time in which to take care of our problems, but for the God who created everything to want to talk to us is the mind-blowing realization we should get when we look at Psalms that speak of God being the creator.

And at the same time, we should know, without any hesitation, without any doubt that the God who created everything could fix what we need fixed.

Lord, guide us as we pray.  The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. (Psalm 19:1)  Thank you for loving us so much that you wish to speak to us directly.  We have our issues to deal with here on earth and You know better than we do how those things will be fixed.  But we see Your mighty works and the delicate little things that shout who You are.  Thank you for all those gotcha moments where You point my focus at something and I am in awe, that You did that just to show me that You are a God who loves me and You love beautiful things. In the name of Jesus, I pray.  Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.