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

You have set your glory
    in the heavens.
2 Through the praise of children and infants
    you have established a stronghold against your enemies,
    to silence the foe and the avenger.
3 When I consider your heavens,
    the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
    which you have set in place,
4 what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
    human beings that you care for them?

5 You have made them a little lower than the angels
    and crowned them with glory and honour.
6 You made them rulers over the works of your hands;
    you put everything under their feet:
7 all flocks and herds,
    and the animals of the wild,
8 the birds in the sky,
    and the fish in the sea,
    all that swim the paths of the seas.

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

I have to confess that I got out of bed and went outside somewhat reluctantly. It was the early hours of a January morning, and we were staying on the island of La Palma – a protected ‘dark sky’ region. What Jilly had seen, and insisted that I should also see, was the clear, star be-jewelled, night sky, as I had never seen it before. As we stood together, shivering and marvelling, we were overwhelmed with a sense of wonder. It felt like the stars were so low you could reach out and touch them. How small we were that night…and always have been. There is no doubt that God can use the night sky to get you into perspective.

On another day, as we walked up the lane close to our home in Coverdale, we saw the cattle and sheep chewing nonchalantly. They gave us a passing glance, and just carried on. Nature will humble you, if you let it into your soul. Those beasts don’t care who we are, or what we’ve been. They don’t want to know our names or have our autographs. How small and insignificant we actually are. We live for a few years, then die, and life carries on without us. What a stupid and vacuous and deceptive thing celebrity culture is! Lying at the extreme edge of the world’s madness and folly, fame is an illusory bubble. As Jilly commented to me the other day, ‘Even Geoff Bezos, with his billions, will have to die and face the judgment of God.’

Yes, we are so small. For sanity’s sake – true mental health – we need an appropriate sense of our true size.

So small…

…and yet, paradoxically…so significant. In verses 5-8, the psalmist answers his own question: the one he raises in verses 3,4. Ironically, however, we can only live out our significance on this planet from out of an awareness of our own smallness. Humility and authority go together. It is those who learn to kneel who ‘rule’ the best (6).

Thought: Praise (1,9) is a God-given way to ”silence” the enemy’s ‘noise’ in our heads (2).

God, brilliant Lord,
    yours is a household name.

2 Nursing infants gurgle choruses about you;
    toddlers shout the songs
That drown out enemy talk,
    and silence atheist babble.

3-4 I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous,
    your handmade sky-jewelry,
Moon and stars mounted in their settings.
    Then I look at my micro-self and wonder,
Why do you bother with us?
    Why take a second look our way?

5-8 Yet we’ve so narrowly missed being gods,
    bright with Eden’s dawn light.
You put us in charge of your handcrafted world,
    repeated to us your Genesis-charge,
Made us stewards of sheep and cattle,
    even animals out in the wild,
Birds flying and fish swimming,
    whales singing in the ocean deeps.

9 God, brilliant Lord,
    your name echoes around the world. The Message