Wednesday, May 6 — Look Up
Step outside tonight. Find a piece of sky between the streetlights. Take a good long look. Then read this psalm again.
Psalm 8 — KJV
To the chief Musician upon Gittith, A Psalm of David.
O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger. When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas. O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!
Psalm 8 — WEB
For the Chief Musician; on an instrument of Gath. A Psalm by David.
LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens! From the lips of babes and infants you have established strength, because of your adversaries, that you might silence the enemy and the avenger. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have ordained, what is man, that you think of him? What is the son of man, that you care for him? For you have made him a little lower than the angels, and crowned him with glory and honour. You make him ruler over the works of your hands. You have put all things under his feet: all sheep and cattle, yes, and the animals of the field, the birds of the sky, the fish of the sea, and whatever passes through the paths of the seas. LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Explanation
David wrote this psalm at night. You can feel it in the language. He is looking at the stars he calls the work of God's fingers, and the size of the sky is doing what the size of the sky does to thoughtful people. It humbles him. It also opens up an enormous question.
The question is the heart of Psalm 8. What is man, that thou art mindful of him?
In a universe this big, with stars beyond counting, why does God think about us at all? Astronomers have given us numbers David could not have imagined. There are roughly two trillion galaxies in the observable universe. The Milky Way alone has somewhere around a hundred billion stars. And yet here, on a small wet planet around an unremarkable yellow star, God is mindful of you. He visits you. He pays attention.
That is not a sentimental thought. That is the foundation of every other thought you can have about your own life. If God is mindful of you, then nothing about you is too small for his attention. If God is mindful of you, then your work matters because you matter. If God is mindful of you, then the rough Wednesday in the middle of an unremarkable week is not invisible to him.
David then says something that connects this psalm directly to our lesson on useful work. God has crowned humans with glory and honor. He has given them dominion. He has put the works of his hands under their care. The image is not of humans trampling creation but of humans assigned to it, the way a steward is assigned to a household. We are responsible for what God made. The cattle, the birds, the fish, the soil, the systems we build, the neighborhoods we live in — somebody has to keep watch over all of it. God says it is us.
This is what gives ordinary work its dignity. The accountant balancing a small business's books, the teacher coaxing a fifth grader through long division, the deacon checking on a sick member, the welder, the foster parent, the trash collector, the night nurse. They are all part of the human assignment David is talking about. They are all under that crown.
You may not feel crowned this morning. You may feel underpaid, overlooked, tired, or invisible. The psalm does not tell you to feel crowned. It tells you that you are. The crown is a fact, not a feeling. You wear it when you slept badly. You wear it when nobody noticed you came in. You wear it when nobody clapped.
David starts and ends the psalm with the same line because he wants you to remember the right order. The earth belongs to a magnificent God. That God put a crown on you and gave you something to do. So do it today like the king or queen God called you to be. Even in your tired body. Even on Wednesday.
Thought for the day: God is mindful of you. Therefore so is your work.
Reflection question: When was the last time you went outside, looked up, and let yourself feel small in a good way? What would change in how you do your work this week if you started there?
Prayer
God who made the stars and still remembers our names, we thank you for setting a crown on heads as ordinary as ours. Lift our eyes from our screens long enough to see what you have made. Then give us the courage and the joy to do our part of it well. Amen.
This week we walk toward Sunday's lesson: Useful Work as Christian Duty.