Psalm 8 (How Majestic Is Your Name)

Have you ever had that moment when you were standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon, or on the shore of the Pacific Ocean, or when you just summited Pike’s Peak, or pulled over on a road trip in west Texas and to glanced up at the stars and, in that moment, said, “Wow! I am awesome!”?   

No! That moment doesn’t exist! In all of human history, that has never happened! And we are all familiar with what does happen in that moment. When our eyes behold the expanse and beauty of God’s creation, we say something like, “Wow, I am so small!” It takes our breath away. There have been moments where I have involuntarily lost control of my legs… as if there were something woven in me that was created to bow before glory.  

I was going in to the 9th grade and my good buddy Zach and I were on top of his Mom’s roof playing football in the dark. Just a super normal, West Texas thing to do at 11:00pm. There was a moment when we took a break and sat down on the highest peak of the roof and looked up. I had never heard the Gospel or had any positive thought about God for that matter, until this moment. There, in the quiet, gazing up at the West Texas sky, my selfish, stained, sinful, dead ears began to hear a faint song that I had never heard before that sounded something this: 

“Oh Lord our Lord how majestic is Your Name in all the earth… When I look at your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and stars which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him?  The son of man that you would care for him?”  

I didn’t know what to do with that experience until I literally snuck in to a youth group a couple days later and found out exactly how the creator of the universe cares  for me. The God Who lives, Who’s glory drew me in on a rooftop, sent His only Son to DIE for my sin!  The One Who, with His fingertips, put the moon and the stars in their place – He loves me? How could this be? 

The God that I avoided for 15 years because of guilt and shame used the the song of creation to pull me in to His family. I was blind, but now I could see. Wretched man that I am, Who will save me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! Now I could know Him! Talk to Him! Cast my cares upon Him Who cares for me!!! The creator of everything seen and unseen loves me!  

Listen to this, friend. This God I’ve been talking about––you know, the One Who SPOKE Mt. Everest into being––in Psalm 8:5 He says that He has crowned YOU with glory and honor! YOU! Not Mt. Everest! Not the Grand Canyon or the Pacific ocean! YOU are God’s kingly representative, crowned with glory and honor and given dominion over the earth! 

So whatever your eyes take in today, whether they look up at the sky or they simply look over at the face of a neighbor, they are beholding the glory of God. And when they do, may you not miss out on the age-old song that is forever on repeat.

Oh Lord our Lord how majestic is Your Name in all the earth!