Psalm 8 (NRSV)
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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
Here is the irony. As human beings, we are "made a little lower than God" and at the same time, we are made of the dust of the earth. And most days we feel both. We are capable of great things. We can and do bear witness to grace. But just as quickly, we are reminded that we are dust. We so easily fail ourselves and others. So which are we? Beloved of God or dust scattered by the wind? We are both. Perhaps to be made in the image of God means, not that we look like God or act like God, but that we carry God's grace in our bones both as forgiven sinners and stewards of a mystery. Perhaps, both in our worst failure and in our greatest joy, we are simply the bearers of God's grace.
Prayer
Faithful Lord, let these dry bones live. Fill me with your grace, so that on days of dust, your grace might be my forgiveness and strength and on days of hope, your grace might be what I bear to the world. Amen.