Psalm 8 (NRSV)
Read Psalm 8 on biblegateway.com
Verse 1O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.
Verse 2Out of the mouths of babes and infants you have founded a bulwark because of your foes, to silence the enemy and the avenger.
Verse 3When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established;
Verse 4what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?
Verse 5Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.
Verse 6You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet,
Verse 7all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field,
Verse 8the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
Verse 9O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Devotion
It was my junior year of high school, in 1965, when the words of verse 4 of this psalm—later to become the text of my senior sermon at Luther Seminary—first “struck” me: “What are humans that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?” The insight came, “Who am I, in this vast universe, that God pays attention to me?”
That spring, I came home from Luther League, on one of those lovely spring nights when it seemed that creation was wrapped in God’s peace. My mother was sitting on the front steps. I said, “Mom, what are you doing here?” She said, “I like to look at the stars.” It was a new revelation to my teenage mind; my mother had personal interests beyond being a mother and wife. The stars and the heavens were the root of that insight. Stand and look at the heavens. The truth of the old poster will come, “God made me. God made you, and God don’t make junk.”
Prayer
Jesus, thank you for demonstrating by your life that we are eternally valued in your eyes. Amen.
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