Daily Devotion – May 18, 2021 – Dr. Pat Taylor Ellison

Psalm 104:24-34, 35b
104:24 O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.
104:25 Yonder is the sea, great and wide, creeping things innumerable are there, living things both small and great.
104:26 There go the ships, and Leviathan that you formed to sport in it.
104:27 These all look to you to give them their food in due season;
104:28 when you give to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.
104:29 When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust.
104:30 When you send forth your spirit, they are created; and you renew the face of the ground.
104:31 May the glory of the LORD endure forever; may the LORD rejoice in his works–
104:32 who looks on the earth and it trembles, who touches the mountains and they smoke.
104:33 I will sing to the LORD as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being.
104:34 May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the LORD.
104:35b Bless the LORD, O my soul. Praise the LORD!

Humankind is but one dimension of what God created. The psalmist here is pretty excited about how vast creation is, and how far beyond people it goes. The earth is full of God’s creatures! And, big or small, they depend on God for their food in due season and for their breath and their very creation, through the Spirit.

For this, the psalmist praises the Lord every day he or she has life. Bless the Lord, O my soul! It is a wonderful thing to praise the Lord for all the variety and breadth and depth of creation. It takes us out of ourselves and our fixation on the many things that seem to beset us, sometimes small, even petty things. It shines a light on the greater, grander scope of God and God’s huge work. This creative work includes the tiniest microbes and bugs, and also the leviathan of the seas. God is very very big and generous and fills the universe with life and delight.

“I will sing praise to my God while I have being.”

When you die, wouldn’t you want people to say that about you – that you praised the Lord every day for the wonder and bigness of life? I would. So I am trying, daily, to praise God for God’s greatness and vastness. It makes my world bigger and God, being its ruler, even bigger still.

Lord God of all, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for stooping to love even us when you have all of creation to care for.  Thank you for being our abundant and most wonderful Lord.  Amen