Psalm 8:1-9 (NRSV)
Read Psalm 8:1-9 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
There's nothing quite so humbling as gazing at a breathtaking landscape scene: the Grand Canyon cutting across the desert; the ocean rolling into the distance; the mountain range stretching in all directions; the canopy of a clear star-filled night sky. In those moments, the psalmist's words of meditation, "What are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them" make sense (Psalm 8:4). The wonder of Pentecost is that through the gift of the Holy Spirit the fullness of God, the creator of the Heavens and the Earth, the painter of the desert canvas, the sculptor of the mountains, the igniter of the stars dwells in us…human beings of whom God IS mindful, mortals for whom God does care!
Prayer
God, we are in awe of the majesty of your name and of the glory of the heavens. We gaze at the world you have created around us, and we respond with the psalmist: "O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth." Amen.