Summer is my family’s camping season, and that means I’ll spend time out in the open looking at stars. It’s healthy for me somehow. It calms me to realize how small I am, though I wonder at my place in God’s grand scheme of things. I lose track of who I am so easily, especially when I forget to look up.
Psalm 8
“O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babies and infants you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.
“When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?
“Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
“O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” (Psalm 8 ESV).
We’re Managers
As I considered the stars I didn’t expect to find a reference to God’s assignment for us. The psalmist points out that we are placed a little lower than heavenly beings, and he’s crowned us! Our commission is to rule over the animals, managing our part of his outstanding creation.
The maker of the stars gave us a job to do, a place to rule. No wonder the psalmist repeated the opening praise “how majestic is your name in all the earth!”
I need to go pet my dog.
by Kathy Sheldon Davis
kathysheldondavis.com 