I spend lots of my time in motion. My job lets me move from place to place, and person to person. My time away from work is often just as busy. But I am learning to appreciate the benefits of “down time.” There is something peaceful and positive in pausing to ponder. Something settling comes over me as I read and re-read the words of Psalm 8.

¹ O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory above the heavens.
²     Out of the mouths of babes and infants
you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,
to silence the enemy and the avenger.

 ³ When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
⁴ what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?

⁵ Yet you have made them a little lower than God,
and crowned them with glory and honor.
⁶ You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under their feet,
⁷ all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
⁸ the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas. 

⁹ O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

When I stand still at night and look up at the stars and the moon, there is a beauty and majesty that is at the same time comforting and humbling. (God made all that, and made me so that I can enjoy it.) When I hold a baby, either at baptism here in our church or in the line waiting to see a doctor in some Honduran village, and when I hear them laugh and giggle, there is something pure and perfect. (God made them and me, and has given us life and the joy that accompanies it.) If I will just pause and take in the sights and the sounds that often surround me, I will know for a fact “how majestic God’s name is in all the earth.”

Prayer

God, help me to slow down long enough each day, so that I will be reminded by all that I encounter, of your loving presence in creating, redeeming, and sustaining me through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.